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The employment of bacteriological methods for administrative purposes continues to increase
in London. Reports which supply this information, relating to 23 districts, show that in 8,229
bacteriological examinations, 1,667, or 20.3 per cent., gave positive results. Dr. Brown gives in his report
an account of the procedure he has adopted in Bermondsey since the year 1902. Whenever a case
of diphtheria is notified in that district, he invites other members of the family in which the notified
case occurred, to come to the Town Hall for examination, so as to secure their examination about
a week after the removal to hospital of the notified case and also after the return home of this case
from the hospital. He thus examined 315 persons belonging to 136 families, and 13 of these persons
he found to be harbouring diphtheria bacilli; four of these subsequently developed clinical
symptoms of diphtheria. Again, Dr. Caldwell Smith states that when a succession of cases occur in
schools in Wandsworth, measures are taken to swab the throats of all the children in the classroom
in which cases have occurred. The homes of absentees are visited, and the throat of any child having
a sore throat is swabbed. No child is allowed to resume attendance at school until found to be free
from diphtheria bacilli. In Camberwell, it is the practice to examine bacteriologically all children
who have been treated at home before they are allowed to return to school.

In some of the reports, particular prevalences of diphtheria are discussed. Dr. Parkes refers to a
special incidence of diphtheria on the children in three elementary schools in Chelsea, and to the recurrence
of diphtheria in the Duke of York's School, where measures were adopted with prophylactic intent similar
to those of the preceding year. Dr. Annis gives an account of a child in Greenwich whose parent
allowed her to attend school after she had been told by a medical man that she was probably suffering
from diphtheria, and while awaiting the result of bacteriological examination of material from her
throat. Forty-nine children appear to have contracted "sore throat" from this child, and two of
them were of a diphtheritic character. He also gives account of an outbreak of diphtheria in the Royal
Hospital, Greenwich. In the case of a family from which a child had been removed to hospital on
account of an attack of diphtheria, he found on the foot of a member of the family a sore from which
he recovered diphtheria bacilli. Dr. Lennane gives a detailed account of outbreaks in two institutions
in Battersea, the Wandsworth Infirmary and the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls; Dr. Wellesley
Harris records that classes in five schools were closed in Lewisham on account of diphtheria prevalence
among the pupils ; and Dr. Davies states that for the third year in succession there was an
outbreak among the pupils of the Bostall-lane School in Woolwich, which continued in spite of resort