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124
SECTION VI.
PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF TUBERCULOSIS.
The Tuberculosis Clinic is situated at 13, Katharine Street.
The premises are not suitable, being cramped and noisy. Sessions
are held daily in the mornings and afternoons except on Monday
mornings and Thursday afternoons. An evening session is held
on Tuesdays. The Clinic is primarily a diagnostic and advisory
centre. To it come patients sent by doctors, cases under observation
and cases under treatment at home. From it patients are
drafted to various Sanatoria and Hospitals or back to their private
practitioner.
I am indebted to Dr. J. C. McMillan, the Assistant M.O.H.
for Tuberculosis, for the greater part of this section of the report.
An efficient Clinic dealing with Tuberculosis should have an
X-ray plant on the premises. Although the facilities for obtaining
X-ray reports and films are good, the medical officer in charge of
the Clinic loses the great advantage of making his own screen
observations and taking his X-rays. The patients also are put
to some inconvenience by the present arrangements. For the
carrying out of Collapse Therapy X-ray control is absolutely
essential, consequently the Clinic is unable to undertake artificial
Pneumothorax refills. As this treatment is being used at the
Cheam Sanatorium it would be advantageous to the patients if
they could, on their discharge from the Sanatorium, obtain necessary
refills in Croydon, instead of. as at present, having to go up
to London or to Cheam.
Undue Fear of Tuberculosis.
One French authority on Tuberculosis published an article
designed to put the public on its guard against undue fear of the
disease. He states that by the number of placards urging the
avoidance of contagion by refraining from spitting in public places
a veritable psychosis has been created in the minds of persons who
were predisposed. The fear of tuberculosis contagion haunts them.
They take ridiculous precautions. As soon as they cough they
consult a doctor, demanding that they be examined and radiographed,
or they use self-medication recommended by advertisements
in the daily press. They go from one doctor to another
until they finally encounter a charlatan who exploits their credulity.
Another class are those who have a tuberculous patient in the
family. They go to extremes in protecting the patient,