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Infectious Disease Visits
During the year, the Sanitary Inspectors paid 423 visits with reference to cases of
infectious disease. In addition, the County Health Visitors did a certain amount of home
and school visiting in connection with infectious diseases.
Tuberculosis
Pulmonary Tuberculosis
The number of new cases notified during the year was 88.
Other Forms of Tuberculosis
The number of new cases notified during the year was 3.
Of the total notifications 6 were received from Medical Practitioners; 63 from the
Uxbridge Chest Clinic; 7 from General Hospitals; 2 from Special Hospitals; 12 from
St. Bernard's Hospital; and 1 from Hammersmith Chest Clinic.
Deaths from Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis of the respiratory system, 12; other forms, nil.
For details of new cases notified and deaths in 1953, see Appendix, Table X, and for
the occupation of new cases see Appendix, Table XI.
Public Health (Prevention of Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1925
Public Health Act, 1936, Section 172
Action under these powers was not necessary during the year.
The number of new notifications fell from 123 in 1952 to 91 in 1953. This, while a
considerable improvement, did not constitute a record low figure for notifications—as in
1951, the number was down to 80.
The number of deaths from tuberculosis was 12, 4 of which occurred in St. Bernard's
Hospital, the corresponding number for 1952 being 9, excluding St. Bernard's Hospital
deaths. Of the 12 deaths 3 had not previously been notified as cases of tuberculosis. It
appears, therefore, that there are still cases of tuberculosis who seek treatment or are
discovered too late for medical skill to be effective in saving their lives, and the use of the
Mass X-ray Unit for periodic review should limit the likelihood of this occurring.
The Mass X-ray Unit of the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board paid a visit
to Southall from 28th September until 15th October, in 1953. Careful and extensive
preliminary publicity was arranged for, the first step in this being to convene a meeting
of representatives of voluntary organisations in the Town Hall with the Mayor as Chairman,
and with the Medical Director and Liaison Officer of the Mass X-ray Unit as speakers.
At this meeting, the representatives were asked to assist in every way they and their
organisations could with publicity of the forthcoming visit, in order that the greatest
attendance possible of the general public should be obtained during the Unit's stay. The
local Press was extremely generous with its space both in reporting this meeting and in
giving pubUcity at other times prior to and during the visit of the Unit. Propaganda
leaflets were delivered into each household by members of the various organisations and
poster publicity was also used. A number of booking offices were made available by the
Borough Council, by voluntary organisations, namely the British Red Cross, the Women's
Voluntary Service, the Church Army, and the authorities of St. George's Parish Church
and also by the Middlesex County Council, whose Clinics were made available for booking
purposes.
The effect of this advance publicity and the making of convenient centres for booking
was that a splendid response was obtained and during the visit of the Mass X-ray Unit
there was an unprecedented number of bookings obtained, so that the Unit carried out
more work per session than it had previously been required to do in any district. The
total numbers attending at the King's Hall, which was used for the actual work of the Unit,
15