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The Council is responsible for measures to prevent the spread of this
disease, including rehousing where necessary. Arrangements have been
made for the examination, free of charge, of sputa in cases or suspected
cases of tuberculosis, 35 such examinations being made during 1945.
Similarly disinfection and visitation are provided to secure the
removal of unhygienic conditions, the examination of contacts, etc.
The treatment of cases of tuberculosis is under the control of the
Surrey County Council, which provides both sanatorium and dispensary
treatment, but their resources have been very strained during the war
years, owing to the lack of staff and other demands for hospital beds.
The dispensary for the diagnosis and observation of cases is situated
in Whytecliffe Road, Purley, and sessions are held there every Monday
from 2-4 p.m.
The County Council makes a very substantial contribution towards
the financial resources of a Voluntary Care Committee, which serves the
area of the Urban District and most of the Caterham and Warlingham
Urban District. It does very useful work in helping individual cases
and their dependants. The Council has been represented thereon by the
Medical Officer of Health and, in addition, in 1945 appointed a member
of the Council to serve on the Committee.
PUBLIC HEALTH ACT, 1936, SECTION 172.
PUBLIC HEALTH (PREVENTION OF TUBERCULOSIS)
REGULATIONS, 1925.
No action has been required under these powers during recent years.
NON-NOTIFIABLE INFECTIOUS DISEASE.
The group of non-notifiable infectious diseases accounts for very few
deaths, with the exception of influenza, to which five deaths were attributed
in 1945, compared with an average of nine deaths per annum
during the war years. The highest number of deaths in any one year
from influenza was 20 in 1943, which was the one year in which this
disease caused some perturbation, though fortunately it never increased
to anything approaching the proportions of the 1918-19 outbreak.
In addition, one or two children under two years of age have died
from diarrhoea each year.
Apart from the death returns the only information as to the presence
of outbreaks of non-notifiable infectious disease are the returns from
the nurseries and public elementary schools. As judged by these there
have been no exceptionally widespread outbreaks during the war years
excepting possibly one of german measles in 1940. Mumps and chicken
pox occasionally became epidemic but not on a serious scale. In
1942-3 there was an appreciable number of cases of infective jaundice,
while occasional cases have occurred each year since.
Home visitation and exclusion from school are still the two chief
methods relied upon to postpone the onset of the above-mentioned
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