View report page

32
SPECIAL CLINIC FOR DELICATE CHILDREN.
In June a Special Clinic for Delicate Children was
opened at the Cornwall Road Centre. The main feature
of the Clinic is artificial light treatment by means of a
quartz mercury vapour lamp. The Medical Officer in
charge is Dr. H. M. M. Mackay, M.D., M.R.C.P., who
has had considerable experience in artificial light
therapy. Dr. Mackay has instructed certain of the
Health Visitors in the routine use of the lamp and the
necessary precautions to be taken, and light treatment
is given three times a week. Four patients are usually
treated at a time. The cost of the treatment itself is
extraordinarily low, the lamp being estimated to
consume one unit per hour, which, at the present cost
of electric current, is 2d. per hour for the first 60 and
thereafter ½d. per hour.
The Clinic had not been running sufficiently long
by the end of the year to afford full and reliable data
as to results, but very complete records are being kept
and it is hoped that a comprehensive report will be
available in respect of 1926. Meantime, it may be
said that one obvious value of the Clinic is to make
good to some extent the deficiency of natural sunlight
from which the town child suffers, especially in congested
districts and in winter. There is, moreover,
evidence that the treatment has been of value in many
cases of rickets, etc.
Dr. Mackay reports as follows :—
" This Clinic has now been working for about a year, and
for most of that time a mercury vapour quartz lamp has been
in use for those children for whom it is require'd. The children
attending the Clinic include cases of rickets, anaemia, and
persistent catarrhal infections, as well as many who are flabby,
backward or whose general progress is poor. Nearly all the
cases are transferred from other clinics by their respective
Medical Officers. Light treatment and massage are given
three days weekly during the morning—but no case is ordered
such treatment until a full clinical history has been obtained
and a physical examination has been made, and the mother
has received advice concerning any defects of feeding or hygiene
which it appears within her power to rectify.