London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
West Ham 1937
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for West Ham]
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REPORT ON THE WORK OF
THE TUBERCULOSIS DISPENSARY
BY P. A. GALPIN, M.D., D.P.H.,
Chief Clinical Tuberculosis Officer.
The work of the dispensary has been carried out as usual
during the year.
Clinical examinations. The number of cases examined is
shown in Table XXI., in which figures for other years are also
shown for comparison. The table also gives the number of
persons examined as request cases or contacts.
Table XXI.
| Type of case. | Number examined at dispensary. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1927 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | |
| Examination by request | 760 | 553 | 5l6 | 537 | 521 | 479 |
| Contacts | 699 | 507 | 351 | 401 | 464 | 423 |
| Notified cases | 198 | 98 | 104 | 74 | 69 | 48 |
| Definitecases | 516 | 419 | 328 | 276 | 301 | 284 |
| Total exams. | 2,173 | 1,577 | 1,299 | 1,288 | 1,355 | 1,234 |
Six of the contacts were diagnosed as tuberculous, or 1.42
per cent, of the contacts examined.
Pulmonary tuberculosis.
Institutional treatment. The number of beds at Dagenham
Sanatorium was adequate for the patients who accepted treatment
there. The demand for beds necessarily fluctuates periodically,
and at the end of the year 32 beds were unoccupied. The decline
in the demand for beds is partly due to the decrease in the total
number of cases needing this form of treatment. Whereas in
1927 the number of definite cases examined was 516, in 1937 only
284 were seen.
There has also been a considerable decline in the number of
children notified, as the following figures show: —
198