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57
previous case of the disease. This enquiry has been continued and information is
now available in respect of 4,067 cases which have undergone residential treatment
under the Council's scheme. Of these, it was noted that, in 2,827 cases, there was
" no known contact " with a previous case of the disease, leaving 1,240 cases, or
approximately 30 "5 per cent, which exhibited contact of some sort.
The total figures now available in regard to the class T.B. -f- cases are shown
in the subjoined tables.
No conclusions additional to those arrived at last year present themselves in
connection with these tables, but it may be worth while to reiterate the following
(the current year's figures being substituted for those of 1934 in no. 2) :—
(1) Contact with a previously diagnosed case of tuberculosis in the family
is of sufficiently common occurrence in the history of new patients to stimulate
examination of contacts in the attempt to find early cases.
(2) In the age groups 16 to 30, 22 per cent, of new male positive sputum
cases and 25 per cent, of similar female cases arise from families in which there
have been recent previously known cases in parent, husband or wife, brother or
sister, or child.
(3) Approximately three-quarters of such previously known cases are
themselves sufferers with positive sputum disease.
(4) Every effort, therefore, should be made to examine and supervise, over
a considerable period of time, contacts, especially—having regard to the
frequency of the disease at this period of life—young adult contacts, of living
positive sputum cases or of those recently dead from the disease.