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regulations directing this having been in force throughout 1913 from 1st February, it
has been thought advisable to alter the title to "Tuberculosis."
That there should have been such an extension as that noted marks a tremendous
advance in the effort to deal with this disease.
In previous reports reference has been made to the gradual way in which full
compulsory notification was reached, the whole process taking something like four
years, and advancing step by step from notification of poor law cases, to notification
of hospital cases and then to notification of all cases.This last had been in operation
something under 12 months when the regulations revoking all previous regulations
and consolidating their provisions, and extending the requirement to all forms of
tuberculosis appeared.
These bear the title Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1912, and though
they were issued in December, 1912, did not came into operation until 1st February,
1913.
During the whole of January the notifications were made under the Regulations
of 1911 and were of pulmonary cases only.
Under the 1912 Regulations, though there was some slight change in the form of
notification, especially as regards Poor Law cases and cases detected by school
medical officers, notification of pulmonarv tuberculosis remained unaffected. It is
possible, therefore, to take the figures for this form of the disease as those of a
complete year.
The figures for other forms of tuberculosis relate only to 11 months.
The following table, which, slightly altered, is continued from 1912, is rapidly
becoming interesting historically.
It shows the number of cases notified each year since 1906, when voluntary
notification was first introduced; the changes taking place in the extent of the notification,
and the effects produced by these changes. This year, for the first time, the
figures relating to non-pulmonary forms of tuberculosis are introduced, and the
heading of the table is altered from "Phthisis Notifications" to "Tuberculosis
Notifications."
The total number of pulmonary cases notified it will be seen is considerably less
than that for 1912.
The large figure for 1912 probably included quite a number of known cases,
notification of which was only brought about as a result of the introduction of
compulsory notification in that year.
For some years, probably, the annual number of cases will continue to get
smaller, and the figures to represent more and more newly discovered cases.