[Report 1902] / Medical Officer of Health, Staffordshire County Council.

  • Staffordshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1902] / Medical Officer of Health, Staffordshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    48 The Medical Officer of Health of Sedgley writes “ The antitoxin treatment of this disease is now a proved success, especially if used at an early stage of the attack. I beg to recommend that it be supplied free for poor patients, and also to protect the other members of a household where this disease appears. This method has been adopted in several districts in the County.” The Medical Officer of Health of Smethwick writes :—“It is very desirable, in the interests of public health, that medical practitioners should avail themselves of the offer that has been extended to them for obtaining bacteriological proof of freedom from infection after the subsidence of the clinical symptoms and before the isolation of the patient is terminated. Ex¬ perience has shown repeatedly during the past year that many persons who apparently have recovered from diphtheria have subsequently for a long time retained the infection in the throat, and no one should be allowed to resume work or school attendance, or mix with the other members of the family, until by these means it is proved he is free from infection. School children are already to some extent safeguarded, from the fact that no child is allowed to resume attendance at the school, after having suffered from the disease, until a certificate has been forwarded to the clerk by the Medical Officer of Health stating the house has been disinfected, and where possible this bacteriological proof of freedom from infection has been ob¬ tained.” The Medical Officer of Health of the Borough of Stafford states that the epidemic of diphtheria, which had prevailed since October, 1900, has now come to an end. In this town, also, antitoxin is extensively used both as a curative and prophylactic agent. The Medical Officer of Health of the Borough of Stoke- upon-Trent writes :—After four years of much increased pre¬ valence, this disease seems now to be steadily decreasing, and the death-rate is once again below that for the large towns. During the first five months of the year the disease was very