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Report of the Bacteriologist
For the year ending March 31st, 1904.
The activity of this department, though somewhat
limited by the very low rate of mortality from infectious disease
during the phenomenally wet year included between April,
1903, and March 31st, 1904, has been steadily increasing, and
the proportion of cases of suspected diphtheria submitted to it
for examination has never been so high.
With 367 notifications, the number of specimens from
throats sent in has been—
Positive. Negative. Doubtful. Total.
124 157 12 293
The number of medical men who send specimens
steadily increases, as the provision made by the Council
becomes more widely known and appreciated, and some of the
oldest practitioners in the district have quite recently for the
first time availed themselves of the services of this department.
The number of tubercular sputa has been 110, made up
as follows:—
Positive. Negative. Doubtful. Total.
23 86 1 110
The examinations so made are most useful, both to the
practitioner and the patient, enabling the former, after three
negative results, to assure the latter with almost positive
certainty, that he or she is not suffering from consumption.
The number of examinations of blood for typhoid fever,
by Widal's re-action, has not been large, for the disease has
shown but small prevalence.
The results have been—
Positive. Negative. Total.
7 9 16
Milk.
Samples from the thirty cowsheds of the Borough have
been examined, with results fairly comparable with those contained
in my four previous reports upon this subject, but
distinctly more favourable.