View report page

66.
picion should arise later, the patient can always be
re-examined, being entered in another year as a new
case.
Dispensary Statistics for 1930.
In 1030 the number of new cases from all sources
was 593, of which 335 were referred by medical men
(285 being from private practitioners in Fulham): the
number of contacts examined was 321, and the number
of re-examinations carried out totalled 3437. All these
figures show an increase on the previous year, with the
exception of the total number of new cases, which in
1929 was 665.
The number of patients on the register at the end of
1930 totalled nine hundred, a very slight increase of
thirteen on the figures for the previous year: discharges
in the years 1927, 1928 and 1929 were rather more
numerous, owing to the operations of the various regulations
contained in the Ministry of Health memoranda
(of which a brief observation is made in due course) and
this factor, no doubt, has had a distinct bearing on the
registered numbers during these past years.
In connection with discharges, it may be noted
that in accordance with the Regulations, a classification
as "recovered" (formerly "cured") can only be adopted
in pulmonary cases if the patient has been in an arrested
state for a period of three consecutive years : whilst
the term "arrested" is only applicable to those patients
who have shown no indication of active disease, i.e.
have been in a quiescent state, for a period of two years.
Thus actually if a patient is once notified as suffering
from Tuberculosis (unless denotified by or with the consent
of the medical practitioner who originally notified)
he cannot be discharged as "recovered" within a period
ot five years. Therefore those patients who are discharged
as such, are cases who have remained under
supervision by Public Health Authorities, either in
Fulham or elsewhere until they have fulfilled the conditions
specified above.