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Tuberculosis.
13
That more than half the patients who come for treatment
are in the prime of life, and therefore of greatest value to the State,
and that many of the cases ought to he discovered earlier than
they are.
That tuberculosis is essentially a disease of environment,
aggravated, doubtless, by an hereditary predisposition, and that it
behoves us to keep a very watchful eye on all "contacts" in a
home where there is an " open " case of pulmonary tuberculosis.
That cases of blood-spitting and pleurisy are nearly all
tubercular, and that influenza, followed by pneumonia, is often the
forerunner of tuberculosis.
That one-fourth of the patients admitted to a hospital for
advanced cases have previously had institutional treatment without
any permanent benefit.
That so long as the consumptive is allowed to return to his
home the scheme devised by the Government for controlling the
spread of the disease will, to some extent, fail. Farm colonies are
the ideal scheme for the permanent sequestration of all marked and
incurable cases.
RECENT PUBLIC HEALTH LEGISLATURE.
The Local Government Board have issued a General Order
dated 13th May, 1916, entitled The Public Health (Tuberculosis)
Regulations, !916. This order states that:—
Article 2. (a) Every Medical Officer of Health shall send
to the Army Council, Whitehall, London, in the form shown on the
Schedule in this Order, a list containing the names and other
specified particulars of all tuberculosis male persons entered in the
register kept by the Medical Officer of Health in pursuance of
sub-division 2 of Article 11 of the Regulations of 1912 who were
between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years on the first day of
January, 1916.
(6) Every Medical Officer of Health shall send to the Army
Council the name and other specified particulars of every tuberculous
male person between the ages of sixteen and forty-five
years hereafter entered in the said register within a week after the
entry is made therein.