View report page

81
Rheumatism Supervisory Clinic.
A Rheumatism Supervisory Clinic is held every weekday at the Hospital for
Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, beginning at 9 a.m.; it is available for children
up to 12 years of age. After this age they are automatically transferred to
St. Bartholomew's or King's College Hospital, or to the hospital they have attended
before they came to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
The presence of rheumatism is by no means always easy to determine: in the
early stages when obviously a diagnosis is of the greatest value, this can often only
be done by watching the child over a period of three to six months, durirg which
time the child attends regularly at the Clinic.
At the Clinic comprehensive records are kept as to the children's physical
condition. Advice is given on such matters as clothing, exercise, diet, and any
alteration desirable to the child's curriculum at school.
At the Great Ormond Street Hospital Clinic all stages of rheumatism are
treated, not only the early stages.
For the child who is not damaged beyond repair protracted treatment is
possible at the Lancing Convalescent Home, where the child resides for 6-9 months,
Enquiries in Notified Cases of Rheumatism.
Enquiry was made in sixty-seven cases in relation to: —
(a) the type of house in which the patient lived;
(b) the presence of dampness and absence of light and ventilation;
(c) sleeping accommodation, overcrowding, and the standard of comfort
and living;
(d) the condition of the nose, throat and teeth;
(e) heredity.
Type of House.
24 lived in satisfactory artisan self-contained flats.
14 lived in satisfactory artisan homes in divided houses of a comfortable type
(a better class of house let in lodgings).
22 lived in houses let in lodgings.
5 lived in artisan dwellings of an old type, not self-contained but superior
to ordinary houses let in lodgings.
2 not traced—incorrect addresses.
It is somewhat curious to note the incidence of acute rheumatism in satisfactory
homes,
F