View report page

urged that attention should now be focused on detective work and
teamwork between Hospital, Medical Officer of Health and General
Practitioner. The first objective was to find everyone with an
active focus and having found and made available to him such
treatment as was necessary, there was the further obligation of the
Local Health Authority to ascertain if possible whence he had
obtained his infection and whether he had or was likely to infect
others. Early and complete notification of all detected cases was
an essential contribution that clinicians in and out of hospital
should make. If the same energy was put into tracing the source
of Tuberculosis infection as was put into tracing the source of
Typhoid or Smallpox the decline in incidence would be speeded up.
A satisfactory scheme for the prevention of Tuberculosis was
dependent on a number of people. The primary responsibility
rests in this country on the Medical Officer of Health working
through and with the Chest Physicians, the General Practitioner and
Factory Doctor. It is essential that there should be close cooperation
between them and that other Local Authority Staff should
co-operate to the full. It is very important that the General Practitioner
should be informed, as he is, and should be. the vital
discoverer in the early case. No campaign which is not fully known
to the General Practitioner and supported by him can succeed;
the Health Visitor has a very important part to play, but the
Sanitary Inspector, Housing Manager, Social Worker, the District
Nurse and School Teacher are all concerned and so is the Medical
Officer of Health as School Medical Officer.
The Medical Officer of Health is now so much preoccupied
by matters of a minor character that he has little time for schemes
of an Epidemiological nature. Although progress has been made
there is still no room for complacency.
A matter which gives one uneasiness is the growing tendency
of admitting suspected cases to the wards of General Hospitals.
Some of our hospitals are unfit places for this purpose because
of their structure and hygiene arrangements do not permit of the
necessary measures for prevention to be taken and also no better
place can be found, where more susceptible persons are congregated
together for the spread of the disease.
7