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(b) Contact Tracing and Examination of Cases of Tuberculosis.
This is a most vital part of the organisation for preventing tuberculosis.
As soon as a case of tuberculosis comes to the notice of the Chest Physician, the
Tuberculosis Health Visitor calls at the home address and ascertains as far as possible
the members of the family and any other people who have been in contact with the case.
Discreet and tactful enquiries are also made about contacts outside the immediate family
circle, where necessary.
Adult contacts have a chest x-ray examination at periodic intervals, as is considered
necessary.
Child contacts are tuberculin tested; those found to be Mantoux negative are offered
B.C.G. vaccination and placed under continued surveillance; those Mantoux positive are
x-rayed, and certain cases placed under surveillance for as long as is advisable.
Special clinic sessions are held for contact cases and during the past year 996 contacts
were examined as a result of 194 new cases, giving an average number of 5.13 contacts per
notified case.

As a further step in the campaign of prevention, the Tuberculosis Health Visitors are
informed of all deaths from tuberculosis and in those instances where the case has not been
notified during life, a tactful home visit is paid as in the ordinary notified case to ascertain
the contacts. The routine procedure of examination is subsequently followed.
(c) Mass Miniature Radiography.
The Mass Radiography Unit No. 6B is based at St.Mary's Hospital, Plaistow, to serve West
Ham and 7 other adjacent areas. It carried out a total of 15,720 miniature x-ray examinations
in this Borough during the year, 8,363 in males and 7,357 in females.
Apart from the main general public survey detailed below, the Unit also made surveys of
special groups in the Borough, seven visits being made to industrial premises and two to hospitals.
In addition, routine chest x-ray examinations of expectant mothers attending the Council's
ante-natal clinics continued during the year, sessions being held at regular Intervals at Forest
Street and Maybury Road Clinics thus covering the respective halves of the Borough. A total of
1,094 expectant mothers were examined at the nine sessions held. They comprised cases referred
from the Council's ante-natal clinics and the ante-natal clinic of Plaistow Maternity Hospital;
and in the latter part of the year a small number of expectant mothers also attended from the
Leyton area adjacent to the Forest Street clinic.
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