Discussion on the co-ordination of measures against tuberculosis / opened by G.A. Heron. : and, The voluntary notification of phthisis in Brighton : including a comparison of results with those obtained in other towns / by Arthur Newsholme.
- George Allan Heron
- Date:
- 1907
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Discussion on the co-ordination of measures against tuberculosis / opened by G.A. Heron. : and, The voluntary notification of phthisis in Brighton : including a comparison of results with those obtained in other towns / by Arthur Newsholme. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
18/25 (page 40)
![[_This Discussion also applies to the Paper by Dr. G. A. Heron, p. S6.~] Dr. E. C. Seaton (Surrey O.C.), said the co-ordination of measures against tuberculosis was a rather wider subject than that under which he proposed to make some remarks. The advantages that Brighton had in the organisation and administration of its public health work placed it in a position to afford an object lesson to many authorities. The present system of dealing with phthisis '(consumption) commenced some years ago. In 1899, as lecturer at St. Thomas’s Hospital, he had first brought a class of advanced students to see the system in practical operation. That system had been developed and tested since, and he had lately had the opportunity of seeing it fully in opera- tion. The measure of first importance was the improvement of dwellings, more especially those of their slums. They could not banish their slum popu- lations, but they could banish the conditions under which they lived, so that they might claim, as one town even larger than Brighton did claim, that they now had no slums. He was certain that such work would not suffer under Dr. Newsholme’s direction, and that it would always occupy a foremost place in his scheme. He had always been on the side of voluntary notification, and was more so than ever after having become acquainted with the working of the 'system, and seeing what had been accomplished in Brighton. The keynote of ; success here had been that sick people or their friends in notifying cases of consumption to the medical officer of health felt sure they would be helped in one way or another, and that notification would not be to their detriment. The part of the preventive system to which he had paid special attention lately was the sanatorium treatment of phthisis, and the provision made for that purpose in Brighton. He desired to dwell on this aspect of the subject especially, because there was no use disguising the fact that sanitary authorities, who already had experience of the cost of maintenance of large numbers of scarlatina or scarlet fever children, often for several weeks together, were fairly alarmed at the prospect of what the maintenance of phthisis cases, possibly in much larger numbers and for much longer time, might mean. Now in Brighton they could see at the excellent and well managed Poor Law Infirmary, and at the Sana- torium for Infectious Diseases, as nearly a complete system of dealing, not only with scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhoid, for which the Corporation had statutory duty to provide, but also, and in buildings alongside with those for other infectious diseases, cases of phthisis. This class of sufferers, for reasons affecting both their own health and the public health, needed sanatorium treat- ment for a time. He was impressed with the boldness of this innovation in municipal hospital administration, and he immensely admired the intelligence displayed by the staff and the loyalty with which precautions were observed, which made the system safe and one approved of by local medical and public opinion. It would therefore be seen from what had been said that the question of cost must be judged by the cost of the whole Public Health Department, i.e., salaries of officers, laboratories for all purposes, including water analyses,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2241843x_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
