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14
and I recommend that such notices be posted up explaining
the danger to the Public Health and forbidding
the practice, and thus remove one cause of the spread
of Consumption.
DISINFECTION OF ROOMS USED BY
TUBERCULOUS PATIENTS.
Twenty-five rooms and 209 articles have been
disinfected during the year.
Cards of instructions, sputum bottles and disinfectants
are provided free.
It should be widefy known that the Council disinfect
patients rooms and contents free of charge.
I strongly recommend that all rooms occupied
by tuberculous patients should be periodically disfected.
PREVENTION OF CANCER.
Whilst much is being done to prevent and eradicate
Consumption, it is well that the attention of the public
should also be directed to the prevention of Cancer.
In Harrow during the last five years 63 deaths have
been caused by Cancer and 49 by Consumption.
Without going deeply or widely into the subject
which is being extensively and minutely investigated
by many surgeons and bacteriologists I would like to
offer some brief and practical suggestions which I trust
may prove useful.
Medical observers are agreed that the chief predisposing
cause of this disease is chronic irritation.
When warts, moles, naevi (strawberry marks) and
other growths are exposed to constant irritation they
should be immediately removed.
My first schoolmaster had a wart on One side of
his nose which he pulled when irritated. When visiting
him some years after leaving school I saw that one side
of his face was eaten away by Cancer which had started
from the wart.
Irritation of the skin in certain occupations such
as X Ray operators, workers who use tar or paraffin,
and soot, in the case of sweeps, lead to Cancer.