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will for some years to come be a great difficulty in Sanatorium
treatment as the Insurance Committees will be anxious to see these
people well cared for, and the Local Authorities will be glad to see
them removed from surroundings where they cannot but get worse,
but will also be the means of spreading the disease to others with
whom they are in daily contact.
There is also to be considered the class of case which is in its
final stage. The Workhouse Infirmary would seem to be the proper
place for these unfortuuate persons were it not for the odium
that attaches to the workhouse in the minds of the poor. The only
suggestion I can make on this point is the erection of a Consumption
Ward, at, or the renting of one of the houses adjoining
the Kingston Victoria Hospital, in which such cases could be
housed and cared for under the superintendence of the Hospital
Authorities. The charge would come under the working of the
Insurance Act.
From a prevention point of view the greatest hope would be
in the treatment of the young. There are many chiidren in our
schools who are in a condition liable to degenerate into Tuberculosis
and Consumption, and there are also children too ill to attend
an ordinary elementary school who would benefit greatly, and in
most cases permanently, if cared for in an open-air school. They
would in all probability quickly get back to normal health and
many would on return to the elementary school, do well educationally
and grow up into useful citizens. Such a school must of
course be regarded more in the light of a sanatorium than a
school. Whilst children are in the open-air school the teaching
must be only the secondary, the recovery of health the primary
consideration. Luckily there is land belonging to the Corporation
on which such a school could be established at a comparatively
small cost.
Sixty-one notifications were received during last year, twentyseven
being from the following Hospitais and Sanatoria:—
Brompton Hospital 11 ; City Road Hospital 1 ; Mount Vernon