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98
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
Pulmonary Tuberculosis—Results.—In Table LVI. the
cases of one year are not comparable with those of another year,
as each group has been under treatment for a different period.
In order to estimate the results of treatment it is advisable to
take the condition of each patient after he has been under treatment
for a definite period which must be the same for each. In
this way the cases of one year can be grouped with those of other
years and fairly large figures are obtained, from which it is
possible to draw certain conclusions.
For this purpose a period of three years has been chosen,
and each patient has been classified according to his condition in
the 36th month after he first attended for examination. A patient
examined for the first time in March, 1914, has been classified
according to his condition in March, 1917, irrespective of what
has happened to him since; one first examined in December,
1918, according to his condition in December, 1921.
During the six years 1913 to 1918, 1,613 cases of active pulmonary
Tuberculosis were examined at both Dispensaries and
classified as such. Each of these patients has been dealt with
in the manner described, and the results are shown in Table LVI.
Of the 1,613 cases, 313 cannot be traced, leaving a nett total of
1,300, the condition of whom was known at the end of the three
year period. The number known to be dead is shown in the
fourth column and the case mortality, i.e., the percentage of
deaths to nett cases, is shown in the last column. The results
in one group can be contrasted with those in another group by
comparing the case mortality.
The figures show that 50 per cent. of all cases of active pulmonary
Tuberculosis have died within three years of first coming
under treatment, and that the results in females are slightly better
than in males. There is a marked difference between the sputum
positive and sputum negative cases, the mortality in positive
cases being nearly four times that in negative ones. The group
"no record of sputum," consists mainly of very bad cases, frequently
seen only once, where no opportunity of examining (he