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permitting of disinfection in one case in twelve, compared with one in
three of the former.
Endeavours will be made to have disinfection carried out in every
instance, and I have hopes that this will soon come to pass.
As the local press yearly gives a resume of my Annual Report, and a
large section of the public thus reached, I reproduce the leaflet with
the hope that attention may be in this way drawn to its contents.
WALTHAMSTOW URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL.
INSTRUCTIONS to those suffering from PHTHISIS
or TUBERCULOSIS OF LUNGS
(CONSUMPTION)
By the Medical Officer of Health.
What Phthisis or Consumption is, how Contracted or Acquired,
and the Conditions Predisposing to its Influence.
Consumption or Tuberculosis of the Lungs is an acquired disease and
not hereditary. It is caused by the growth in the lungs of minute
germs (tubercle bacilli), and all persons are liable to be infected and to
suffer from the disease.
How Acquired.—Almost entirely by inhalation into the lungs of
the dried sputum or phlegm of persons suffering from the disease.
The expectoration of consumptives contains myriads of disease
producing germs (tubercle bacilli), and these are set free when the
matter spat up dries on the floor, in the street, trams, trains, etc., and
becomes converted into very fine dust, which is then inhaled, and thus
sets up the disease in those susceptible to its influence.
Conditions Causing it.—Overwork, insufficient sleep, bad and
insufficient food, badly ventilated dwellings, intemperance, and all
causes tending to lower the general state of health.