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69
preventive and welfare aspects of the services provided by the local
health authorities. As environmental factors especially housing are so
important in this disease, the contribution which the local sanitary
authority can make towards its prevention is the improvement of the
housing conditions of those families which have a member suffering
from the disease, or who are close contacts of the infection. All three
bodies, then, have their part to play in the control of this disease.
Diagnosis.
30 notifications were the result of the detection of the disease in
persons presumably apparently well who had been examined by the
Mass X-ray Unit. This Unit visited the district in April, June and
July. Representations had been made by different bodies to the Education
Committee that all children at school should be examined in this
way. As the number of units is limited, as is also the number of people
trained in the use of these machines, even if it were desirable, it would
not be possible to arrange for the regular examination of every person.
It is most desirable, then, that the units available should be used to
examine those in groups which are likely to yield the highest proportion of
hitherto unrecognised sufferers. Adolescents and young adults probably
fall into this category, especially those employed in certain classes of work,
but not very young children. The Education Committee agreed that when
the unit should visit the district, if possible, arrangements should be made
for the older children at the Secondary Grammar Schools and the leavers
at the Secondary Modern Schools, to be offered the opportunity of being
examined. This was done, except that an invitation was not extended to
the pupils of one of the Secondary Grammar Schools where a detailed
examination of the pupils had only recently been carried out. There
was quite a satisfactory response to this invitation. The unit while
in the district examined the personnel at certain factories and in addition,
held a number of open sessions which any member of the public could
attend.
Unfortunately, the way in which the records of the unit are kept does
not lend itself to an analysis which can relate these findings to the local
population, and of those persons examined at a factory or even examined
at an open session, it is not known how many are local residents. In all
12,598 persons were examined, 5,380 males and 7,218 females. Of
these, 3,852 (2,109 and 1,743) were employees of local factories; 1,543
were Civil Servants; 631 were Local Government Officers; 56 were
members of H.M. Forces, and 541 were school children. The public
sessions were attended by 1,786 men and 3,989 women.
Out of 12,598 examined, 494 were recalled for examination by large
films. In regard to 379 of these, no further action was necessary. Further
investigation was called for in respect of the remaining 125, though in only
about one-quarter of them was the disease recognised.
The incidence of infection amongst the school children examined was
exceedingly low ; in fact, at only one school was any case detected and it
is probable had the unit not come to the district that this child would
have been detected, because investigations which would in the ordinary
way have been carried out following the recognition of the infection in one