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35
ARTIFICIAL SUNLIGHT TREATMENT.
Since April, 19.24, an ultra-violet ray lamp has been in use in the Ladbroke Road Baby
In-Patient Hospital. Even in a short period of nine months information has been obtained which
shows its value in the treatment of certain diseases and conditions of ill-health.
Dr. W. A. Hislop, one of the Medical Officers of the Hospital, has kindly supplied me with
the following interesting information in regard to this specialised form of treatment:—
"As most of the cases in the Hospital are suffering from rickets and wasting diseases, the
type of Lamp selected for use was the Mercury Vapour Air-cooled Lamp.
Exposures to the Light are made for a very short time at first—from two to three minutes
—at a fixed distance from the Lamp and with a fixed strength. The time of exposure is
gradually increased according to the reaction of the patient, and the administration, at first on
alternate days, becomes daily.
The reaction, or response of the patient, to the Light is definite. Some hours after
exposure an erythema, or redness of the skin, appears, and according to the degree of this, the
length of the next exposure is judged.
This redness varies with persons as well as with the time, distance and strength of the
exposure, and it is this first factor—the personal variation—that makes it necessary to begin
with very short exposures, till the intensity of the response is discovered. With repeated
exposures there follows pigmentation or sunburn, more or less marked with different patients,
similar to the varying response of people to the rays of the sun.
It has been demonstrated that the dark-complexioned respond more readily and can take
longer doses of the Lamp than the fair, while some children do not sunburn at all, but tend to
blister. With these latter it has been found that the length of exposure has to be advanced
very slowly, and occasionally no advance is possible. Two such have been noted.
During the administration, all the patients have their eyes protected; the larger children
wear Crookes glasses, and the smaller ones have their eyes suitably bandaged. The staff
working in the lamp room are likewise protected.
The accommodation in the Hospital is limited, and treatment has been confined to
in-patients, so that the majority of cases dealt with have been rachitic, debilitated or wasted.
The treatment of rickets has shown very satisfactory results and it is estimated that, along
with suitable dietetic treatment, two months is sufficient to effect a cure. It is to be hoped
that in the future, as cases of rickets come under treatment at an earlier stage, more rapid
results may be obtained.
By definite comparison it has been shown that cases of general debility following underfeeding,
neglect and malnutrition, have increased in weight, improved in muscular tone and
general fitness, more rapidly when the general Hospital treatment is accompanied by Light
treatment.
Beyond the definite remedial effects, above described, there is the wider question of the
preventive action of this form of treatment. Better than curing a rachitic, or hastening the
recovery of a wasted child, would be the prevention of such conditions.
To help towards this, much greater opportunities of getting Light treatment will be
necessary.
In the hope, therefore, of making a beginning towards this aim, a second Lamp of the
same type has now been installed in the Baby Clinic, Tavistock Road, North Kensington, not
only on the remedial, but on the broader preventive basis.
There it will be possible to treat out-patients in considerable numbers, and it is hoped by
this means to reduce the number of rachitic and debilitated children, who now require Hospital
treatment, and further to treat other diseases in their early stages."
KENSINGTON MATERNITY HOME.
During the year, the Council considered the question of providing accommodation for the
confinement of women who live in small flats and tenement houses which lack adequate
facilities for this purpose and they approached the Kensington Board of Guardians with a view
to ascertaining whether special accommodation could be found at St. Mary Abbot's Hospital.
The Board gave the matter their sympathetic attention and decided to place at the disposal
of the Borough Council a detached ward of ten beds in the southern portion of their grounds.
Such an arrangement involves no capital expenditure on the part of the Council in the erection of
a special municipal maternity hospital, but nevertheless it provides accommodation which is
entirely satisfactory for those expectant mothers in whose case the need of improved facilities for
safe confinement has been keenly felt for some time.
The Council decided that the ward should be called the "Kensington Maternity Home,"
and that the accommodation should be available for married women of all classes whose home
conditions are not suitable or convenient for their impending confinement, and who cannot afford
to pay the fees charged in private nursing homes.
The necessary minor structural alterations having been made and the equipment provided,
the Maternity Home was opened on 1st October, 1924.