View report page

59
Deaths.
Tuberculosis caused the deaths of five local residents, four male and
one female. No children died of the disease.
Prevention.
The early recognition of infection in a person is of paramount
importance and in this context the work of the chest clinics and the
Mass X-ray Unit must be mentioned.
It should be more widely known that there is available at the Central
Middlesex Hospital, Park Royal, N.W.10, a permanent Mass X-ray Unit,
open between 9-5 on Mondays to Fridays, and 9-12 on Saturdays. Here
any person over sixteen years can attend without appointment or medical
note and without the payment of a fee. In addition, the Chest Clinics at
Station Road, Harrow, and Edgware General Hospital provide ready
facilities for the examination of all patients referred on suspicion of some
chest trouble by hospital departments and also by their own doctors.
In addition, of course, the clinics undertake the routine examination
and re-examination of contacts, especially family contacts of a known case.
Here one would like to record with appreciation and grateful thanks to
Dr. Grenville-Mathers and Dr. Trenchard and their respective staffs at
the Harrow and Edgware Chest Clinics, for their co-operation, help and
advice so willingly given at all times.
The school medical and nursing staff continue to play their part in
controlling this infection.
1- The tuberculin testing of school entrants is done at some of the
schools. 250 children were given the jelly test, all being negative. 687
children were tested by the Heaf gun and 10 were positive. All those
Positive reactors who were X-rayed were free from disease.
2. Examination of Contacts. An episode occurred during the
year in an infants school which illustrates the necessity for perpetual
glance when dealing with this disease. In December 1961 a boy attending
an infants school was diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis. His
grandfather was known to have tuberculosis and it was thought then that
he was the likely source of infection. Later that month a school teacher
at the same school was diagnosed as having pulmonary tuberculosis and