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which was opened on 5th April, 1934, at 170,
Wandsworth Bridge Road. The clinic is doing
splendid work. The Maternity and Child Welfare
Committee co-operated with the Public Health
Committee by agreeing to the use of their Maternity
and Child Welfare centre at Wandsworth Bridge
Road on one day a week for the immunisation.
The clinic is conducted by Dr. Guy Bousfield.
I am not pretending that in a few years
diphtheria can be stamped out by immunisation,
but this is the biggest and most important step
which the Council has yet taken. The results
will depend on the response of the public. Individual
children who are immunised at the
Council's clinic will be protected against the
disease but unless the majority of the children in
the borough are immunised the results will have
little or no effect on the statistics.
Active immunisation against diphtheria is
usually known for simplicity as immunisation.
This is the process which is being carried out at
the Council's clinic for the prevention of diphtheria.
The injections stimulate the person actively to
produce antitoxin which counteracts the effect of
any diphtheritic infection to which he may be
exposed in the future. The substance used for
the injections is toxoid-antitoxin mixture. It is
not used for the treatment of diphtheria but to
prevent persons from contracting the disease. As
children are the principal sufferers from diphtheria
most of those who attend such clinics are children.
A few persons have a natural resistance (natural
immunity) against diphtheria and are not liable
to the disease. A simple test (the Schick Test)
is therefore done before the three immunising
injections are given and if the result of the test
is negative the immunisation is unnecessary. The
Schick Test has other important uses in addition
to the above.