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all normal, 2 taking place in Hospital. In a sixth case, we advised
the midwife who had been booked for the confinement to engage a
doctor also. Forceps had to be applied as the baby was a full-time
one of average size and weight. Both mother and child did well.
I am glad to record that venereal disease was only found in 4
cases last year. Two of these were old-standing cases of specific
disease. One had been under treatment at the V.D. Clinic at the
Royal Free Hospital before she came to see me and is still attending
there, but has not yet been confined. The other was an old patient of
mine whom I had sent to the same V.D. Clinic during a previous
pregnancy. She had a course of treatment during this last pregnancy
and has been recently confined in a special isolation ward in the V.D.
department of the Royal Free Hospital. Her baby is a healthy and
beautiful one and presents no trace of any congenital taint, thanks to
the treatment its mother received before its birth. Gonorrhæa was
present in the two other cases,—both unmarried women. I sent one
of them to the V.D. department just referred to, and she was admitted
into the Hostel that is connected with it, for the remainder of her
pregnancy and is to be confined in the special isolation ward at the
Hospital, shortly. I sent the other case straight away into another
Hospital for treatment. Whilst on this subject I should add blood
tests were carried out in 21 cases last year at our Clinics, and the
Wasserman reaction was found to be negative in all, by the Pathologist
at the Royal Free Hospital who does this work for the London County
Council.
Marked endocervicitis was present in 26 expectant mothers. It
is most important to detect and treat such cases promptly as this
condition is apt to give rise to ophthalmia neonatorum (or discharging
eyes) in the babies subsequently born to these mothers. It is interesting
to note that in most of these cases that ubiquitous germ, the
Bacillus coli communis, was found by the Pathologist at the Royal
Free Hospital to be the offender. It is more and more being realized
that this germ is just as responsible for severe cases of ophthalmia
neonatorum as the gonococcus is. Reports have been received on the
subsequent progress of 19 of these cases, up-to-date. All of them
received some form of treatment, mostly at the Special Department
for married mothers at the Royal Free Hospital, but a few at the
Clinic in the form of lactic acid pessaries and sitz baths. It is most