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97
Appendix A.
Diphtheria Prevention.
The Medical Officer of Health was instructed by the Public
Health Committee to report upon " the measures in force in the
Borough of Lambeth for the prevention of Diphtheria and for
improving them."
Extract from the Minutes of the Council.
We have received the following report from the Medical Officer
of Health on the above matter which we submit for the information
of the Council:—
Report.
There are two clinics in the district where Schick testing and
immunizing injections are available free, one at 212 Camberwell
New Road at 2.30 p.m. on Tuesdays and the other at Hannen
House, Hannen Road, West Norwood, at 10.30 a.m. on Fridays.
The clinics were inaugurated in May and July, 1928, respectively,
and both have continued since without a break, although the
numbers attending have varied considerably depending as they do
almost entirely upon the success of propaganda and upon individual
fear of infection.
The Council's Notice Boards have "been made use of on various
occasions for posters, while over fifty-five thousands of leaflets have
been distributed during the last seven years through Welfare
Centres, at London County Council Schools (by permission of the
Education Authority), by the disinfecting staff to all premises for
whatever cause they may be visited, through the Tuberculosis
Dispensaries, through the Libraries, from the Town Hall, and
once at a Church where the Vicar had made a request for a supply.
The suggestion of a personal letter to each individual head of a
family from the Medical Officer of Health would doubtless lead to
an increase in the numbers attending the Clinics for immunization,
but the actual work entailed in sending such a letter to the 83,777
families in the Borough would be prodigious and quite impossible
for the present existing staff of the Public Health Department to
carry out.
Meanwhile, the propaganda in the daily papers has had a marked
effect on the numbers attending the Clinics. So much so that on
one occasion applicants were turned away as all the prophylactic
material in hand had been used up. Owing to the increasing numbers,
with the consent of the Chairman and as a matter of urgency, the
Medical Officer of Health has made arrangements for an additional