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46
The Antitoxic Treatment of Diphtheria.— The
reduced mortality of diphtheria, during the last five years, has
been the outcome of the use of antitoxin at the hospitals of
the Asylums Board. In the report for 1896 (p. 46) I dealt
somewhat fully with this subject, in connection with the first
annual report (for 1895) of the medical superintendents of
these institutions, setting out their combined experience on
antitoxin in the treatment of this dire disease. The conclusion
arrived at was that in antitoxic serum they possessed
a "remedy of distinctly greater value than any other with
which they were acquainted." Subsequent experience has
served to confirm this view, and the serum has now secured
a permanent footing, not only as a remedy but also as a
prophylactic. The Managers, it may be mentioned, have
made arrangements with the Laboratories Committee of the
Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons for the supply of
serum to the Hoard's hospitals. It was stated in the annual
report of the Chairman of the Board for 1897, that since the
introduction of antitoxin in the treatment of the patients
suffering from diphtheria, the case-mortality in all the Board's
hospitals has fallen—from 293 per cent. during the year 1894,
to 17.7 per cent. during the year 1897, "whilst the decrease in
the mortality amongst cases of post-scarlatinal diphtheria in
the convalescent hospitals had been most striking." The
report for 1898 exhibited a still further improvement upon
these relatively satisfactory statistics, the death-rate having
further fallen to 15.1. In 1899, the mortality was only 136
per cent.
WHOOPING-COUGH.
Whooping-cough was the cause of 59 deaths, against 99,
19, and 52, in the three preceding years successively; 46 in
the Town sub-district and 13 in Brompton, the corrected
decennial average being 62. All of the deaths were of children
under five years of age, including 29 under one year.
The deaths in London, as a whole, from this cause, were
1,720, and 714, below the corrected decennial average.