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HOUSING CONDITIONS OF GASES OF TUBERCULOSIS
NOTIFIED DURING 1951
The housing conditions of the 103 new cases of tuberculosis were
found to be as follows:-
83 patients lived in sufficiently satisfactory housing
accomodation, 23 in flats, 56 in houses, 2 in lodgings, 1 in an
ex-Army hut, and 1 in an Institution.
In 2 cases the housing was unsatisfactory or dilapidated and
in 3 cases there was overcrowding.
6 new notifications came from homes already returning one or
more cases of tuberculosis, and none of these houses were
unsatisfactory, dilapidated or overcrowded.
14 were inward transfers from other districts and therefore
had not developed their illness while resident in Brentford and
Chiswick.
These figures compare with 5 living in unsatisfactory housing
conditions and 14 overcrowded in 1950, and on these two years'
results it would be difficult to say that the spread of tuberculosis
from one person to another was more frequent in occurrence in
insanitary or overcrowded houses - one gets the impression that
those people who develop tuberculosis in unfavourable homes pay more
attention to the laws of personal hygiene, are more anxiously aware
of the risks to their relations, and being in constant fear of
harming them do, in effect, limit their own infectivity. This is
not to say, however, that overcrowding and defects of housing should
not be abated at the earliest opportunity.
Of the 14 cases of overcrowded housing with tuberculosis
mentioned in the 1950 Report, 3 have since been rehoused within the
Borough and the overcrowding abated, and 4 have removed to other
districts.
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