Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1899.

  • West Ham (London, England). County Borough.
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1899. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/270 (page 29)
    20 by the improvement in their home surroundings as a result of a sanitary official's visit. This voluntary system of notification has been some time in operation in Brighton, and I should welcome it in West Ham. The total deaths from Phthisis in the Borough average under 400 each year, so that if every one were previously notified at a cost of 2/6 each the total cost would not be £50 per annum. 3.—Visitation.—Every known case of Phthisis should be visited with the object of examining into the sanitary conditions under which the sufferer lives, and it is also customary to leave printed instructions, briefly epitomising the precautions requisite for preventing the spread of the disease. The leaflet which I have drawn up for distribution in West Ham is given below. HOW TO PREVENT CONSUMPTION. Consumption is an infectious disease caused by a tiny seed, germ, or microbe (called the Tubercle Bacillus) passing from a Consumptive person or animal into another person or animal, whose body is in what is called a receptive condition, that is to say, in such a condition that the microbe is enabled to grow, multiply, and give rise to the illness or death of the receiver. There are many forms of Consumption, but Consumption of the lungs, often called Phthisis, or Pulmonary Tuberculosis, is by far the most common form. It kills one person out of every ten that die in England, and one out of every eleven that die in West Ham. Nearly 70,000 persons die every year in Great Britain from Tuberculosis. The seed of Consumption may be taken into the system in food (meat or milk), but the usual method of catching it is by inhaling or breathing infected dust. The expectoration (phlegm or spit) of a Consumptive person contains thousands of seeds (Bacilli); while the spit remains wet the seeds remain in it; but when the spit becomes dry the seeds (or germs) are blown about in the form of dust, Hence everyone must, at times, be exposed to the risk of infection.