[Report 1929] / Medical Officer of Health, Glasgow.

  • Glasgow (Scotland)
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1929] / Medical Officer of Health, Glasgow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/416 (page 6)
    taken place in both sexes, most markedly so among women. These conclusions are evident from the charts prepared by Dr. J. A. Wilson for the large industrial district of the eastern area of the City, with a population of 200,000 persons, in which the deaths due to pulmonary tuberculosis since 1910 have been plotted according to the age at which symptoms of the disease first developed. They show the relative immobility of phthisis at ages 15 to 25, in contrast to the speedy reduction at younger and later ages, the rate for 35 to 45 years in women having fallen by over 50 per cent, in twenty years. Among the male population the trend in the same direction is very decided, though for older ages the rate was increased during the war years, but is now approximating to the low level for females. It would appear as if tuberculosis were rapidly declining as a chronic affection of the middle aged, but remaining unaffected as an acute affection of young adults, possibly subject to different epidemiological laws. Non-pulmonary tuberculosis is on a somewhat different footing, as it is derived from two sources, human and bovine. Its prevention depends, as far as our present knowledge goes, on (a) control and diminution of human sources of infection, (6) elimination of bovine infection, (c) adequate and suitable means of treatment of the indiv^idual so as to reduce the incidence of crippling deformities. Sufficient pro- vision of institutional facilities for special treatment should be an essential part of a tuberculosis scheme to allow of prompt treatment at the earliest stages. The attainment of this-ideal should almost entirely eradicate crippling due to tuberculosis. This is the policy pursued in Glasgow, where, with the recent opening of Mearnskirk Hospital for children, it will be possible to increase the existing pro- vision of 350 beds to a total of approximately 750 beds for this purpose. Whatever be the reason, however, the death-rates from these forms of the disease have, since the first decade of the century, declined at a more accelerated pace as compared with the rate of fall for the pulmonary form. There have been, in fact, two concurrent movements: (a) As regards mortality, tuberculous meningitis is one-third, abdominal tuberculosis one-fifth, and other forms two-fifths of the rates then prevailing. (6) Along with this, there has been noticeable a decided diminution in the severity assumed by the various forms of tuber- culosis at the younger ages of life, applying particularly to glandular and abdominal disease but also to bone and joint affections, which are showing less tendency to rapid abscess formation, while amyloid • disease is now seldom encountered. It is, of course, impossible to