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75
tive holidays. Full use was made of the Council's own recuperative holiday home
for children at Mayfield, Sussex, and a second home at Littlehampton was opened in
April for the reception of children aged 5 to 8 years.
Expectant
and nursing
mothers and
accompanied
young
children and
other adults
The majority of placings in recuperative holiday homes for adults and accompanied
young children was carried out by direct arrangements made by the Council but the
services of the Family Welfare Association were used as a placing agency for specially
difficult cases. Additional holiday home accommodation was approved for expectant
and nursing mothers and young children and increased facilities for recuperative
holidays for persons suffering from various disabilities were provided. Such special
categories include blind, tuberculous and epileptic persons and adults suffering from
infantile paralysis.

Venereal Disease
A summary of work done in 1950 at the London V.D. clinics will be found in
Table 33, p. 156. Approximately 73 per cent. of the patients were resident in the
County of London. The figures show a continued decline in the number of patients
suffering from syphilis and gonorrhoea. The number of patients attending the
clinics for treatment of non-venereal conditions is again very large, there being a
substantial increase in the number of male patients.
Graphs showing the incidence of early syphilis in London among persons attending
V.D. clinics are again reproduced below. They do not include patients treated by
general practitioners, of whom no statistics are available, but the figures for clinic
patients are probably indicative of the general trend.
The continued decline in the number of new cases of early syphilis attending the
clinics is gratifying, as also is the reduction in the numbers of new patients suffering
from early latent syphilis, i.e., those showing no clinical signs but considered by
blood test, etc., to have contracted the disease within the preceding twelve months.
The rate of decline of early latent syphilis was, however, only about 45 per cent. in
the last two years compared with a rate of about 61 per cent. for all new early cases.
The generally falling trend should not give rise to over optimistic hopes that the
disease may cease to be a serious menace to public health. Modern methods of
treatment may provide more rapid cures than formerly and in many cases provide a
speedy means of removing infectivity but these alone will not eliminate venereal
disease.
It is disquieting to note the number of new patients attending clinics who were
found to have late stage syphilis of long standing. These and new congenital syphilis
cases, happily decreasing, may be taken as an indication of the great number of early
cases of the disease which must still be escaping effective treatment. The fact that
at some clinics new patients with late stage syphilis are as numerous as new patients
with recently acquired syphilis in the primary and secondary stages emphasises that
great efforts will be necessary in many directions before there can be any real prospect
of bringing the disease under fuller control.
F