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In connection with the Dagenham Hospital is a building containing
an Equifex steam disinfector for Hospital use, while attached to
the Plaistow Fever Hospital is a large Washington-Lyons disinfector,
so arranged as to serve the purposes of a public disinfecting station
for the treatment of bedding, &c., of infectious cases occurring in the
Borough on removal to hospital or on recovery at home.
Methods of Control of Tuberculosis.—Down to the
end of 1908 no system, voluntary or compulsory, of notification of
Pulmonary Tuberculosis pertained in West Ham, and consequently
very few cases of living consumptives were brought to the knowledge
of the Public Health Department. Since 1st January, 1909, The
Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1908, issued by the Local
Government Board, have been in operation, by which the notification
of Phthisis occurring in Poor Law Institutions or under the care
of District Medical Officers became compulsory.
In all cases notified a member of the Sanitary Staff visits the
home, with a view to the remedying of any existing defects in the
structural surroundings of the patient, of advising him as to the
necessity of properly using the means at his disposal, of aiding him
by verbal converse and printed literature to appreciate the value to
himself and his family of the proper treatment and disposal of his
expectoration, and of teaching him the right use of disinfectants. In
every case of a recorded death from Phthisis a similar visit is paid,
disinfection of the premises advised and, in most cases, carried out.
During the year 1910, 312 notifications of Phthisis in Poor Law
cases were received. The total number of deaths from Phthisis in the
whole Borough was 337, equal to a death-rate of 11.7 per 1,000, while
the deaths from other tubercular diseases numbered 117, equal to a
death-rate of 040 per 1,000. During the previous 10 years the