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49
Pulmonary Tuberculosis (Phthisis: Consumption),
Twenty-three deaths from Phthisis occurred, which s
equal to a death-rate of .58 per 1,000 of the population.
During 1910 the number of deaths from this cause was 30.
The Phthisis death-rate for Finchley is considerably below
that for England and Wales.
Forty-three notifications of the disease were received
during the year.
In March, 1911, the Local Government Board issued
Regulations by which the notification of all cases of Phthisis
treated in general hospitals was made compulsory, and during
the year 26 notifications were received thereunder.
These Regulations marked the second stage in the Board's
scheme of bringing Consumption under control by making it
a notifiable disease. The third and final stage was reached in
November of the year, when the Public Health (Tuberculosis)
Regulations, 1911, were made. Under one or other of these
Regulations it is made compulsory for medical practitioners
to notify to the Medical Officer of Health the name and
address of any patient upon whom he is attending and whom he
finds to be suffering from the disease. The notification must
be made in prescribed form and transmitted within 48 hours.
In addition to imposing the duty of notification upon
medical practitioners the Regulations confer special powers
upon Councils, and direct the Medical Officer of Health to
carry out certain duties.
All the Regulations provide that nothing shall be done
which is likely to render the patient, or a person in charge
of the patient, liable to a penalty, or to subject the patient
to any restriction, prohibition or disability on the ground
that he is suffering from Pulmonary Tuberculosis.
A system of voluntary notification of Consumption has
been in force in Finchley for over seven years, but only a small
proportion of the cases were notified. This has been the