[Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Edinburgh City.

  • Edinburgh (Scotland). City Council.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Edinburgh City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/258 (page 27)
    As in former years every opportunity is taken to try, in suitably selected cases, the latest remedies which are suggested for the treatment of tuberculosis, but it must be confessed that in most instances the results are disappointing. The multiplicity of remedies and so-called “ cures ” which have been advocated from time to time is in itself sufficient proof that most of them are useless. True it is that encouraging results have been obtained in a small number of cases by the use of one or other of the gold preparations, but many of those so treated show but a temporary improvement, and in a majority no definite evidence of improvement is manifest at all. On the whole it must be confessed that the results obtained by the use of gold preparations in the treat- ment of pulmonary tuberculosis have proved disappointing. The most encouraging and lasting results have unquestionably been obtained by the use of artificial pneumothorax and this form of therapy is being employed more and more extensively by us every year. When applied in suitably selected cases there is no doubt that the lung disease is more rapidly and more effectively brought under control by this process of collapse than by any other means at present known. In successful cases the symptoms, both functional and constitutional, quickly respond to this form of treatment and the local and general conditions often improve in a sur- prising fashion. The result is that the period of institutional treatment is appreciably shortened and the patient can be discharged home no longer constituting a danger to those with whom he is intimately associated. On discharge from hospital appropriate arrangements are always made in each case for the continuation of the treatment as an out-patient. Whilst it must be confessed that much still remains to be done in both the pre- vention and treatment of tuberculosis, it is encouraging to contemplate the advances that have been made in the control of the disease in Edinburgh during the past quarter of a century, as a result of the various anti-tuberculosis measures. A brief resume of the history of these measures and the results obtained following their application during the past twenty-five years may prove of some interest and engender the hope that further and more marked improvement will result. Edinburgh was one of the first Local Authorities to recognise the far-reaching importance of ascertaining the precise extent to which pulmonary tuberculosis existed within its boundaries, and a system of voluntary notification, extending over four years, was, in 1907, replaced by compulsory notification of the disease. This step was immediately accompanied by the adoption of active measures for the prevention and spread of the disease, and so far as the law at that time permitted, for the isolation and treatment of sufferers from it. A pavilion at the City Hospital, consisting of fifty beds, was set apart for the reception of advanced cases of the disease. So fully was that accommodation taken advantage of as to justify an increase to the existing facilities of twelve open-air shelters, each of which afforded accommodation for two patients. There was thus provision made for 74 patients suffering from tuberculosis of the lungs in an advanced stage. An arrangement was also entered into, under which ten beds in the Royal Victoria Hospital at an annual cost of £500 were placed at the disposal of the Medical Officer of Health, where patients could be sent for a course of treatment.