Report of the Provincial Board of Health / Province of British Columbia.

  • British Columbia. Provincial Board of Health
Date:
[1932]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Provincial Board of Health / Province of British Columbia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    taking dictation of interpretation of films, and this followed by typewritten reports of each individual case to the doctor concerned. It has been necessary to have the part-time service of one of your office staff in recording and filing reports. It will be seen from the statements below that while the increase in total new cases examined has been considerable, there has been a greater proportionate increase in the number of re-examinations. This latter is partly, at least, the inevitable result of the present policy of our Sanatorium of discharging patients as early as possible to their homes in order to give a greater number of individuals the benefit of Sanatorium treatment and, more especially, train¬ ing. The more rapidly cases are discharged from the Sanatorium, the more cases there are for supervision by the Travelling Clinic. Comparative Report. Year. New Cases. Re¬ examinations. New T.B.’s, Pulmonary and Hylus only. 1923-24... 240 114 1924-25. 342 40 82 1925-26. 390 36 77 1926-27. 478 40 109 1927-28. 377 178 110 1928-29. 701 290 117 1929-30. 1,222 557 186 1930-31. 1,629 694 222 1931-32. 1,915 1,074 242 Totals... 7,294 2,909 1,259 Total number of new cases . 7,294 Total number of new cases, hylar and pulmonary tuberculosis . 1,259 Total number of examinations, old and new . 10,203 Total number of new cases . 7,294 Total number of new cases, hylar and pulmonary tuberculosis . 1,259 Total number of examinations, old and new . 10,203 We thus have a record in our nine years’ work of 7,294 citizens of British Columbia, with the physical findings of each at time of examination and including 1,259 (less those who have died) pulmonary T.B. cases, many of whom have been re-examined many times; the reports of these re-examinations also are on file. When one considers that this work does not deal with conditions in Vancouver, where are found at least half of all the tubercular cases of the Province, we must have a registration of a rather high percentage of the cases in the Province. With our 1,074 re-examinations last year, you will understand that many of these cases are being followed up in a manner that could not he accomplished in any other way than through a clinic. In a further study of our records this year, it is found that out of the total number of cases examined in this nine-year period, 1,023 gave a history of pleurisy at some time in their lives, either at time of examination or a few months or many years previously. The earliest recorded date is 1898 and one or more representatives in nearly every year since then. Of these 1,023 cases, 238, or a little over 23 per cent., either had an accompanying pulmonary T.B. lesion at time of examination or subsequently developed pulmonary T.B. Thirty-three cases developed empyema, most of which were not of T.B. origin. In a number of cases pleurisies cleared up leaving no aftermath after years. Many have remained chronic pleurisies over years, without as yet showing pulmonary lesions. Undoubtedly, others will later develop pulmonary T.B. lesions, especially amongst the later cases, but if so we hope to get them earlier than is often the case. Much other information will be available from this study, which space will not permit enclosing here. It is my intention to make a further study of these at some future time for the benefit of the profession. As an illustration of the benefits of the clinic in searching out the source of infection, I would like to quote the following:— A case of tuberculous meningitis appeared in one of our rural communities, positively diag¬ nosed by the finding of the bacilli in the spinal fluid. This case recovered, by the way. The parents were negative on examination, but the maternal grandmother was found to he an unsuspected chronic case of pulmonary tuberculosis.
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