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Attendances and Medical Examinations.
1937 3,793 3,437
1938 3,970 3,590
1939 3,467 2,982
1940 2,413 1,901
1941 2,874 2,133
Consultations at Homes of Patients.
Daring the year twenty visits were made to the homes of
patients who were too ill to attend the Clinic.
Number of x-Ray Examination at the Chest Clinic.
1938 1939 1940 1941
1599 1.394 1132 1220
Dr. Philip Ellman, Consultant Physician, reports on the work
of the Chest Clinic as follows:-
The war-time necessity to be brief makes it important to deal
purely with essentials, although other problems which have arisen
during the year are not without significance.
ATTENDANCES: The number of attendances and medical examinations
is the highest of the war period, and the number of new cases
examined is as high as, if not higher than the pre-war figures.
The percentage of these cases which in this area have proved to
be tuberculous, namely, 19.77$, is the lowest on record: i.e.
over 80% of new cases examined are non-tuberculous.
The number of cases of cancer of the lung among the nontuberculous
in the 40 - 60 group, continues to be quite appreciable.
X-RAY EXAMINATIONS; These Continue to be an important aspect of
our activities" and the department is working at full pressure.
Many of the 1220 examinations are contact cases wherein, as our
experience has shown from previous years, the incidence of
pulmonary tuberculosis is exceptionally high. Moreover, many
early, symptomless cases have been detected in this way. It
must be emphasised that good technique and careful and adequate
interpretation of the films are essential for any successful
X-ray service. It need hardly be emphasised that a complete
clinical examination, aided by pathological investigations where
necessary, in addition to X-ray investigations, must bo part of
the clinical procedure in each case if a correct diagnosis is to
be made and the prognosis assessed.
SYMPTOMLESS PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS:
Pulmonary tuberculosis may be regarded as the main important
chronic infectious disease affected by war, and in spite of all
recent advances it is still responsible for the highest death rate
in young adult life, for during the war of 1914 - 18 statistics
show that some 25,000 more deaths, mainly confined to young people,
occurred than would have done had the 1913 death rate continued.
From the figures so far obtained, there is evidence that the death
rate has already increased in the present war from 26,176 in 1938
to 28,669 in 1941.
As I have noted in previous Annual Reports, in young
adolescents in particular, early pulmonary disease may occur
despite the complete absence of symptoms and even extensive lung
changes may be accompanied by comparatively few clinical
25.