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6
I have many times reported to the Health Committee
that, although the death rate from tuberculosis has been falling
rapidly during recent years, due to great improvements in
medical treatment, the notification rate has not on the whole
shown a similar reduction. This may be due in part to better
means of ascertainment, notably by means of Miniature Mass
Radiography, but I have suggested from time to time that an
attack on the problem of tuberculosis from all possible angles,
preventive and curative, is necessary if the disease is to be
finally conquered. The Minister of Health has now prepared
a memorandum which accompanied Circular No. 8/54 in
which he " indicates a need for intensifying various preventive
measures and reviews the value of existing measures
to bring the disease under control." Among the suggested
remedies are greater efforts to discover the source of a new
case, the supervision of contacts, the extension of the use of
B.C.G. Vaccine, and the more selective use of Mass Miniature
Radiography. It will be seen, therefore, that the implementation
of this scheme requires the closest co-operation between
Chest Clinics, the Local Health Authority, the general practitioners
and the Local Authorities, the latter being concerned
mainly as housing authorities and as the authority responsible,
in an important measure, for the local control of infectious
disease. The task is one of the most arduous thrown on the
health services for many years but it is the only sure way of
getting rid of tuberculosis in the foreseeable future. The
need for the collaboration of a large number of medical and
social workers is called for and the effect on our own health
department would be considerable. It is to be hoped that, in
the coming years, this joint action will be forthcoming.
Another impending development is the new housing
legislation which is at present foreshadowed in the Housing
Repairs and Rents Bill at present before Parliament. While
the provision of new housing has proceeded apace, the older
houses have tended to deteriorate during the war and since
and the new Bill is, in part, concerned with slum clearance and
the patching up of sub-standard houses and the improvement
and conversion of older properties with a view to extending their
life while further new houses are provided. Generally speaking
there are no slums in the Borough in the accepted sense of
the word but there is a manageable number of obsolescent
houses which are ripe for demolition and could be tackled
within the next ten years. These could be demolished as
individual unfit houses or as small clearance schemes and,
particularly in the former case, the problem of rehousing the