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27
Chronic Rheumatism.
(a) The clinic established at the West London Hospital for the
treatment of patients suffering from chronic rheumatism in
Kensington has continued its work satisfactorily, and the Council
have made their customary grant of £200 towards the running costs.
The physician-in-charge has reported on the work carried
out and the following points may be of interest.
(1) The pathological and radiological services of the
West London Hospital are available to the department
and full use is made of them. Where necessary, cases
are referred to other special departments, such as
orthopaedic, neurological, dental, gynaecological and
psychiatric.
The following are the percentages of the chief
disease groups seen during the period under review:-
Fibrositis 45%
Osteo-arthritis 25%
Rheumatoid and infective
arthritis15%
Gout5%
Ankylosing spondylitis10%
(2) Various forms of electrical treatment, massage
and the teaching and supervision of remedial
exercises are carried out in the physiotherapy
department. This is equipped with radiant heat,
long and short wave diathermy, ultra-violet light,
wax baths, and apparatus for galvanism, faradism
and sinusoidal baths.
(3) Gold salt injections are given where necessary
in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Local
injections of various substances are used in the
treatment of fibrositis. Vaccines have been prepared
and administered in certain cases, and the new
technique of intra-articular injection has been tried.
(4) Investigation has proceeded on the use of various
solutions for local injection in fibrositis. Different
preparations of gold salts have been compared on
selected groups of cases of rheumatoid arthritis. It
was decided that valuable information might be obtained
by the radioscopal screening of joints in certain
rheumatic diseases. This line of research is being
carried out with interesting results which will be
published later.
(b) The British Red Cross Society's Rheumatism Clinic at
15, Holland Park Gardens, functioned satisfactorily throughout
the year, and the Council made their annual grant of £70 to this
institution.
The clinic is fully equipped for massage, diathermy,
galvanism, ultra-violet ray and heat treatment, x-ray work, etc.,
and these highly specialised treatments are given to those who
cannot afford to secure them privately. In addition to being a
rheumatism clinic, cases are taken when physiotherapy is likely
to be beneficial.