Annual report

October 1949

239

Annual Report NOP, TEERN IRELAND TUBERCULOSIS AUTHORITY. Secortd Annual Report. Year ended December 3I, I947. ICe, Donegall Street,.Belfast° September 1 I, 1948. This second annual report deals with the first full y e a r ' s work of the new authority for tackling the tuberculosis proMem in the whole of the north or Ireland. The whole region is being organized in 5 areas, all based upon a central control point in Belfast. When reorganizing the service the nomenclature has been altered so that sanatoria become chest hospitals and dispensaries are chest clinics or visiting stations; but the general activities of treatment and prevention follow the usual lines. The beds set aside for t u b e r c u l o s i s cases number z,eoI which brings them over one bed per annual death; but the Authority aim at having at least ~ beds per annual death; and great stress is laid on the value of such beds for isolating infection and data are quoted to show that a definite relation-

ship exists between the death-rate from tuberculos& in a community and its sanatorium accommodation. M a n y more houses are rteeded and the value of BOG vaccination is recognized. Certain valuable graphs are given of which one is here reproduced. It shows up to the time of the division of Ireland into two governing authorities that the death-rates fi'om tuberculosis in Northern Ireland had been consistently above those in the rest of Ireland; but after the division the position has been reversed and those for Eire are now much higher than those in a n y other part of the British Isles. Both sets of Irish death-rates have been always above those ['or Scotland and for England and Wales; but those for Northern Ireland are now closely approximating to those for Scotland. The deathrates for Ertglmid and Wales are seen to have recovered from the adverse influence of the last great war and to be the most favourable of the curves shown.

TUBERCULOSIS MORTALITY IN THE BRITISH ISLES

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290

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