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108
Owing to the much greater proportion of non-pulmonary
tuberculosis and the greater difficulties of diagnosis in children as
compared with adults, the details of the examinations made of
children under 16 years of age in 1914 have here been separated
out.
The diagnostic classification must be regarded as provisional
to some extent since amongst children it is usually
difficult to classify accurately into "pulmonary" and
"non-pulmonary" tuberculosis, as the majority of tuberculous
children show signs in the lungs which may or
may not be true pulmonary tuberculosis, and some suffer
from both types of the disease. Differentiation between these
two type? of disease is largely a matter of prolonged observation
and treatment. In these tables, therefore, cases have been classified
according to their most prominent features. The subsequent
progress of the cases may necessitate rearrangement later on.

Note.—The high proportion of contacts which were found to be tuberculous
is partly explained by the fact that the cases examined were to a large
extent selected on account of their appearance or previous medical
history being directly suspicious of tubercular infection. It was not
found possible to examine all the contacts in each family where tuberculosis
was present, but nearly all suspicious contacts were examined.
As the work of the Dispensary becomes increasingly organised, a larger
proportion of the total contacts will be examined, and the high proportion
of tuberculous contacts shown above will probably be reduced.