The control of tuberculosis in England, past and present / by G. Gregory Kayne.
- Kayne, G. Gregory (George Gregory), 1901-1945.
- Date:
- 1937
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The control of tuberculosis in England, past and present / by G. Gregory Kayne. Source: Wellcome Collection.
168/212 page 148
![The establishing of a diagnosis, the recommendation of patients to appropriate institutions, and their super¬ vision after they have returned home, may be termed the curative functions. It has been persistently stressed by the Ministry that the dispensary must not come to resemble the out-patient department of a hospital. The prescribing of medicines should be reduced to a minimum, and all definitely diagnosed cases of tubercu¬ losis should be referred to their own medical attendant for domiciliary treatment, except (a) those who require immediate treatment in an institution, (b) those who require some special form of treatment which can be given most conveniently and efficiently at or in con¬ nexion with the dispensary (e.g. artificial pneumo¬ thorax, sanocrysin), (c) those non-insured persons who cannot afford to or for some other sufficient reason will not go to a private medical practitioner (MacNalty, 1932). This proviso does not do away with the periodic supervision of patients still kept on the register of the dispensary (until they can be removed as ‘recovered’ —not less than five years after coming under treat¬ ment), which should be carried out by reports from, or by consultations with, the general practitioner, or by seeing the patients at intervals. The preventive aspect of the work of the dispen¬ sary has unfortunately been much neglected. In spite of repeated stressing of the importance of contact ex¬ amination and the evidence brought forward to show the fruitful results of such a procedure (MacNalty [1932] writes an excellent chapter on this), this work is still inefficiently carried out or not at all (see table 21). MacNalty (1932) states: ‘particular stress has been laid on the importance of contact examination, partly because its importance has not been fully](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29823808_0168.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
