Dr. G.S. Buchanan's report to the Local Government Board upon epidemic diphtheria in the borough of Tunbridge Wells / [G.S. Buchanan].

  • Buchanan, George Seaton, Sir, 1869-1936.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. G.S. Buchanan's report to the Local Government Board upon epidemic diphtheria in the borough of Tunbridge Wells / [G.S. Buchanan]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/12 (page 11)
    instances where a child came to school obviously ill the opinion of the Medical Officer of Health was sought by the school authorities. But no routine inquiry was made at either school for cases of indisposition among the children actually in attendance. The co-operation of the school attendance officer, who, if instructions had been given him, might have obtained useful and early information as to children staying away from school on account of illness, was not obtained. The use of the isolation hospital for diphtheria was, as has been said, restricted to comparatively few cases. I learnt that during the outbreak in February and March—the period during which prompt isolation in hospital might have availed greatly to prevent the spread of diphtheria—only a single diphtheria patient was received in hospital: up to the date of my visit in August, a total of 25 diphtheria cases had been admitted to hospital since the beginning of the year. There could be no doubt that diphtheria patients were not seldom treated at their homes under conditions which rendered isolation almost impossible. I was informed of instances in which the room occupied by the sufferer was used by other members of the household, and having regard to the frequency with which small houses in East Ward are shared between two families or otherwise become overcrowded, occurrences of the sort can hardly have been uncommon. Whether, as was alleged to me, the hospital was little used because parents were unwilling to send children there, or were dissuaded from sending them by their medical adviser, or whether, on the other hand, the hospital would have been much more freely used if the Town Council had offered hospital isolation in each case, I am unable to say. Throughout the epidemic there was accommodation at the borough isolation hospital for diphtheria patients in considerably larger number than those actually received. The disinfection practised consisted, as has been said, in sulphur fumigation of the room which had been occupied by the diphtheria patient. Clothing, bedding, and other articles which had been used in the sick room were left in the room during the fumigation. The steam disinfecting apparatus at the hospital was this year used for the disinfection of articles from scarlet-fever patients, but not for those of diphtheria patients—a distinction which it would not seem easy to justify. Other precautionary measures taken during the outbreak were the closure, during the early part of the year only, of certain drinking fountains in the borough, and the occasional flushing of sewers in the infected area. At the date of my visit, the Town Council had recently authorised the Medical Officer of Health to obtain and supply diphtheria anti-toxin to medical practitioners for use in cases where it might reasonably be furnished at public expense. December 1898. G. S. BUCHANAN.