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34
TUBERCULOSIS.
This subject was dealt with at. some length in your Medical Officer's
Annual Report for 1901, but those observations were more particularly
directed to the Report of the British Conference on Consumption, held in
July of that year—the voluntary notification of that disease in the City—
and the relation between human and bovine tuberculosis.
On page 31 of that Report attention was drawn to the danger attending
the practice of expectoration in public places, and it was in the hope of
minimising this evil that your Medical Officer reverted to the subject, and
submitted some suggestions for the consideration of the Committee.
The casual observer cannot have failed to note the exhibition at railway
stations, tram cars, and omnibuses, &c., of Placards urging the public to
abstain from the filthy habit of spitting.
Although it would be difficult to defend such notices upon æsthetic
grounds, it would have been dangerous to condemn them, as they serve a
useful purpose in reminding offenders of the duty they owe to the public in
this respect.
In order that the community should be further educated on this point the
co-operation of certain large employers of labour was invited, and I had
little doubt that the Corporation would have the active support and sympathy
of all classes in its endeavour to limit the extension of a disease that is in a
great measure preventable.
The following Circular Memorandum on the subject was accordingly
addressed to firms carrying on the following businesses within the City of
London, viz.:—Railway Companies, Omnibus Companies, Post Offices,
Telegraph Offices, Telephone Offices, Market Superintendents, Public Offices,
Licensed Victuallers, Restaurant Keepers, Police Authorities, Fire Brigade
Authorities, School Boards and other Educational Establishments.
CITY OF LONDON.
Public Health Department,
Guildhall, E.C.,
To July, 1902.
Sir,
The Corporation is anxious to secure your co-operation in preventing,
so far as, possible, the growing habit of spitting in the streets, and other
places of public resort.