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patients—seven notified as diphtheria, and four as typhoid—were
removed to the Metropolitan Asylums Board's Hospitals, and after
some days were returned home as not suffering from those complaints,
or other notifiable disease.
"That cases should be diagnosed as diphtheria when they are not
that malady, is a bad state of affairs, as children in the same house
lose their education, and tenants are put to the inconvenience of
isolation and disinfection; and moreover, the bread winner in some
instances is not allowed to work. Further, should a patient in his or her
turn be removed to a hospital when there is want of accommodation,
and other cases are waiting for admission, a true case may be kept
at home, and not receive the full benefit of the skilled "anti-toxin"
treatment.
"I beg to inform the Committee that a system can be adopted in
Poplar, as in some other Metropolitan Sanitary Districts, whereby
facilities are offered to Medical Practitioners for the bateriological
diagnosis, not only of doubtful diphtheria cases, but also of typhoid
fever cases, in which latter complaint there is frequently difficulty and
nearly always long delay in stating definitely the disease, and friends
are caused prolonged anxiety. The Jenner Institute of Preventive
Medicine, Chelsea Gardens, S.W., provides tin cases, or diagnosis
boxes, containing sterilised outfits, with directions at IS. per box.
A supply of these boxes could be kept at the Board's Offices, or one
could be sent to every Medical Practitioner in the district, and the
boxes, when charged in accordance with the directions, should be
forthwith sent to the Medical Officer of Health in a stamped and
addressed envelope, and an uncharged diagnosis box, with addressed
and stamped envelope, should be transmitted to the Practitioner by
return. The boxes should be numbered and stamped, "Board of
Works for the Poplar District." Inside the box should be an
"IDENTIFICATION FORM."
No of Diagnosis Box Date