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Dr. Roxburgh reports:—"Compared with 1926, there was an
increase of 16 in the number of Wasserman tests carried out on
pregnant women attending the Clinics, viz. : 674 as against 658.
Of these 12, i.e., 1.7 per cent. were found positive as against 1.5
per cent last year.
All twelve had anti-syphilitic treatment during the remainder
of their pregnancies. Unfortunately the average period of pregnancy
at which these mothers came to the ante-natal clinics was a
month later than last year, viz., 6½ months : in fact half of them were
more than 7 months pregnant at their first attendance. This
hardly gives treatment a fair chance and its results may be reflected
in the fact that two of the babies had positive Wasserman tests.
As usual an unsatisfactory feature is that some of the women
will not bring their babies up for test in spite of energetic persuasion
by the Health Visitor, four this year are defaulters in this respect,
as against the usual 2.
I very much regret the loss to the Clinic occasioned by the
departure of Miss Olive Baggallay who for some years has kept
the notes and statistics of the Clinic in a most efficient way and has
been most energetic in her attempts to get the patients to attend
regularly, an uphill task."
Maternal Mortality.
During 1927, there were 6 deaths of women from diseases or
accidents of child-birth which is equivalent to a fatality rate of
2.14 per 1,000 births.