THE ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECTS OF TUBERCULOSIS 9 



V. What are the Organisations Available? 



The available organisations may be classified into Public and 

 Private. Public organisations are the Local Authorities for Public 

 Health in Town and County ; the Parish Councils ; the Charitable 

 Hospitals with their outdoor departments ; the charitable Dispensaries. 

 The Private organisations are : — the special Homes, Hospitals and 

 Sanatoria, devoted exclusively, or almost exclusively, to the treament of 

 phthisis. The campaign against phthisis ought, as Dr. R. W. Philip has 

 held for many years, to correlate all the organisations Public and 

 Private. 



In Scotland, the Local Authorities for Public Health number some 

 313. Of these, the majority are Town Councils; the minority are 

 District Committees. Of the Town Councils many are small, they have 

 control only of small resources, and their efficacy for any extended 

 Public Health movement is correspondingly small. But in a large 

 number of cases they are incorporated with the District Committees, 

 which are the Local Authorities for Public Health in the counties. On 

 the other hand, the death-rate from Pulmonary Phthisis is usually 

 highest in the towns, and the burden on the Town Councils is, therefore, 

 greater. But the^ phthisis death-rate also stands high in the counties, 

 and in some counties it is much higher than in others. In the large 

 cities, the phthisis death-rate is highest, and in them, fortunately, the 

 resources are greatest of all. Obviously, the practical policy is for the 

 smaller towns to co-operate with the county districts. Above all it is 

 necessary for both orders of Local Authority — Town Authority and 

 District Authority — to avoid the mistake of attempting, out of their own 

 resources alone, to solve a problem that more than any other requires 

 combination and concerted action. 



The Parish Councils number over 900. Their primary business is to 

 administer the Poor Law. They must take charge of the indoor and 

 outdoor poor. They must organise indoor and outdoor relief They 

 must have Poor Inspectors ; they must have Poorhouses ; they must 

 have Medical Officers of Poorhouses ; and they must have Medical 

 Officers for the outdoor poor. In Scotland, there are some 69 Poor- 

 houses. It is practically no direct part of the Parish Council's duty to 

 prevent infectious disease ; their duty is to prevent and to control 



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