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* Including 2 cases belonging to other Hospitals.
"Return cases" means cases occurring in the same house
or elsewhere, and apparently traceable to the person released,
within a period of not less than twenty-four hours or not more
than twenty-eight days, after his return or release from
isolation.
The Medical Officer of Health visits all households where
"return cases" of scarlet fever or of diphtheria have occurred
and the infecting cases are carefully examined for some evidence
of continuing infection.
Diphtheria anti-toxin is always available for practitioners
at six different points in the Borough, but inasmuch as most
cases of this disease are removed forthwith to hospital the
demand for anti-toxin is not great. The giving of anti-toxin
to doubtful cases, after a throat swab has been taken but before
the bacteriological report has been received, might wiell be
extended.
In 19.22 my predecessor applied the Schick test for susceptibility
to diphtheria to all the boys at the Kitchener Memorial Home.
In 12 cases out of 51 tested the results were positive. These
positive reacters were all given two doses of toxin—anti-toxin
mixture (½ c.c. and 1 c.c.). In 1923 only six of these cases
were still in the Home, and four gave negative results when
the Schick test was re-applied. The remaining two were found
to be suffering from diphtheria at the time of re-testing. It is