Present and Pi-ospective 223 



j 



Note to Page 206. 



Since the foregoing pages were sent to press 

 the Local Government Board has issued a valu- 

 able report on Sanatoria for Consumption, con- 

 taining the results of a painstaking and exhaustive 

 enquiry by Dr. Bulstrode, which soberly corrects 

 the extravagant statements freely made on popular 

 platforms (summarised in The Times of January 

 25th). He shows that the magnitude of the evil 

 has been grossly overrated, and that, instead of 

 consumption being a cause of increased mortality, 

 its mortality has for many years been steadily 

 declining. In the year 1838 the number of 

 deaths due to it in England and Wales was 

 59,023 ; in 1906 the number was 39,746 : a mor- 

 tality of 1T5 per thousand persons as against a 

 mortality of 39 - 9. In fact, the mortality has been 

 steadily falling from 30 in 10,000 in 1855 to 25 

 in 1865, to 18 in 1885, to 14 in 1895, and to 11*5 

 in 1905. If the decrease goes on at a similar rate 

 for the next thirty years, the disease may evidently 

 disappear. Equally reckless and ill-grounded 

 statements have been made as to the danger of 

 inhalation of tuberculous bacilli by the respiratory 

 organs, and as to the immense and indubitable 

 good which the establishment of sanatoria all over 

 the country would do. So far there is no real 

 evidence that these sanatoria have produced any 

 perceptible effect upon the rate of decline of 

 mortality from consumption ; and their own 

 records, poor and inadequate as are the data they 

 supply, when carefully examined, seem to indicate 

 that in a large proportion of the cases received 



