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133
notification is new to the new district and is therefore added to the
number of cases notified. As this would be occurring over the whole
country, the number of new cases would be inflated because many areas
would be including a certain number of these transferred cases in respect
of whom they have received notifications. Each Medical Officer of
Health is required to send to the Registrar-General every week figures of
the notifications received in that week. For some little time now the
figures of the cases of tuberculosis notified have been included in these
weekly returns. In a recent circular the Registrar-General asked that
the numbers included in these returns should in future relate only to
those cases notified for the first time. In future then the figure for any
district will be that of the notifications received in that district in respect
of patients who are being notified for the first time not merely in that
district but anywhere. The figure for the country as a whole obtained
from all these returns will in future be a much more accurate indication
of the number of new cases than the figures hitherto returned. To
bring these figures into line with those submitted to the Registrar-General
only cases notified for the first time will be from now on referred to.
At the same time as all these notified persons who have been transferred
from elsewhere are now living in the district, their names must be added
to the register of cases which, even though it is not now accepted as an
official register, is still being kept.

The combined figures of 278 can be compared with the number
new cases learned of for the first time in the previous years, these
being 357 for the year 1953 and the preceding years 271, 358, 370 and
• The number of cases notified for the first time in 1954 might be