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35
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.
Dr. Mackay reports as follows:—
The "special clinic for delicate children" has been held
weekly during 1926, and has been attended by cases of various
types. Infants and young children making poor general progress
have predominated, but the Infant Welfare Medical
Officers have also referred cases of rickets, anaemia, chronic
intestinal indigestion, recurrent bronchitis, restless sleep, bed
wetting, and other nervous complaints and diseases, as well as
children convalescent from various acute illnesses. Children
requiring greater facilities for investigation or treatment I have
transferred to the Queen's Hospital for Children, but the great
majority have been treated at the Centre alone.
During the winter and spring months particularly, the
mercury vapour quartz lamp installed about 18 months ago has
proved a valuable adjunct to treatment, and many children
with flabby muscles and poor muscular strength and activity
have been greatly benefitted by the massage given before or
during the light exposure. The mothers have, as at other light
clinics, frequently commented on such changes in their
children as quieter sleep, better appetite, increased activity,
and greater general contentment subsequent to starting light
treatment. During the summer months, when children were
more out of doors and in the sunshine, comparatively few
artificial light treatments were given.