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THE PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF TUBERCULOSIS.
I am indebted to Dr. J. F. Heffernan, Acting Chest
Physician, for the following section of the Report.
Although social conditions were different in 1951, a comparison
with 1924 shows that in 1924, 96.9 per 100,000 of the
population in Croydon died from all forms of tuberculosis; in
1951 the corresponding figure was 25. The years selected were
six years after a major war.
The Chest Clinic, so far, has not moved and remains
centrally situated in Katharine Street, where the work continues
in the fields of prevention and control of tuberculosis, increasing
a little each year in proportion with the rising population of the
area served.
Methods of prevention and treatment move forward together,
and, in fact, being interdependent, cannot be regarded separately.
B.C.G. vaccination has been carried cut regularly throughout the
year for groups of persons at special risk; domiciliary treatment
remains an important feature in the work, and chemo-therapy
has been begun at home in suitable cases awaiting hospital and
sanatorium beds. While at the present time the wait for a bed
is considerably longer for men than for women, the position is
reversed in the case of beds for major thoracic surgery, women
patients having to wait four or five times as long as men.
At the time of writing the report arrangements have been
nearly completed for the opening of 21 beds at Coombe Wood,
for early non-infectious cases of pulmonary tuberculosis, needing
observation and supervision, and for suitable cases of pleurisy.
*
Incidence.
183 cases of Respiratory Tuberculosis and 31 cases of NonRespiratory
Tuberculosis were notified on Form A during 1951
(Table I- Formal Notifications). Of these 116 males and 67
females were Respiratory cases and 15 males and 16 females were
non-Respiratory. In addition, 89 Respiratory cases and 13 NonRespiratory
cases came to our notice as new cases otherwise than
by notification (Table II—Supplemental Return).
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