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The Antitoxin Treatment of Diphtheria.
To the Chairman and Members of the Public Health Committee.
Gentlemen,
Herewith I forward you a copy of the Local Government Board's
Diphtheria Antitoxin (London) Order dated August 15th, 1910, in which
the Board sanction the provision of a temporary supply of antitoxin for the
poorer inhabitants of a metropolitan borough.
In the Board's letter covering the Order it is pointed out that the free
provision of diphtheria antitoxin which is authorised by the Order must not be
regarded as a substitute for removal to hospital of a patient suffering from
diphtheria, unless means are available for his efficient isolation at home, but
rather that the antitoxin treatment should be applied at the very earliest
moment after the disease had been recognised or suspected, so that its severity
might be decreased, and its fatality prevented.
The supply of antitoxin by a local authority for the treatment ot
diphtheria was, so far as I know, first suggested by myself; and, indeed,
some twelve years ago, the question was considered by the Public Health
Committee of that time, and a report as to the efficacy of the serum was
presented to them by me. As that report deals with the success of such treatment
so far as then known, it is now given so that a comparison may be made
between it and that which has obtained in later years, which will be discussed
further on. That report which I made to the Public Health Committee is
dated December 19th, 1898, so that exactly to the very day you are considering
a similar question to that considered by your predecessors twelve years
later. It is as follows.—
"The antitoxin treatment of diphtheria has now been generally
acknowledged throughout the civilized world, and especially throughout
Europe, to have been a most complete success.
"This treatment was first undertaken in the year 1891, but it was
not until three years later (1894) that a serum sufficiently strong was
obtained to produce marked results.
"Since 1894 antitoxin has been tried with the most unmistakable
and happy results in the diphtheria wards of the continental hospitals;
and since 1895 in those of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, in which it
has also been successful.