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The experience of Drs. Mackay and O'Brien at the fairfield Infectious
Diseases Hospital, Melbourne, is much the same, for they found that in those
cases receiving antitoxin in the first 24 hours the fatality was nil, in those
receiving it on the second day it was 4 2 per cent., and in those receiving it
on the fourth day 16.7 per cent.*
It was no doubt because of these and similar results in other places that
the Local Government Board issued their Order, so that the poor as well as
the wealthy might receive the antitoxin treatment at the very earliest moment,
for early treatment means, almost to a certainty, life, whereas delay means
considerable danger, if not death.
The great lesson these figures teach is that the treatment should be
commenced the moment Diphtheria is suspected, and even before the diagnosis
is positive, and certainly before the result of a bacteriological examination has
been obtained.
Since the above portion of this report was written, I have seen in the
last issued number of "The Lancet"†, a brief account of what is being done
in Chicago, which accentuates what I have said. The Health Department
of that great city have just issued an appeal to its inhabitants to assist in
the prevention of Diphtheria, in which they claim that during the last 14
years in which antitoxin has been supplied, the death-rate from it has only
amounted to 36 per 100,000 of the population, whereas before its introduction
it was 136. Nevertheless, they are not satisfied with the result, for they
maintain that there should be practically no deaths from this disease, as
antitoxin, if given in proper doses and at the proper time, will cure Diphtheria,
while if given in immunising doses it would prevent its development
if taken in time by those exposed to infection.
In order that the remedy may be readily obtainable, they have opened no
less than 28 free antitoxin stations in various parts of the city so that it may
be close at hand and gratuitous to everybody ; consequently they say that if
lives are lost, it is simply because the persons concerned do not avail themselves
of these advantages.
The Health Department of Chicago further state that according to the
experience acquired during the last 14 years, recovery is certain if antitoxin
*The Intercolonial Medical Journal of Australasia, February 20th, 1909
†December 17th, 1910.