View report page

35
susceptibility or immunity of the patient. This aspect of the
question has not until recently been prominently raised. The
Maternal Mortality Committee of the Ministry of Health in its
interim report reviewed the subject mainly from the point of view
of the environment of the patient as she is affected by doctors,
niidwives, ante-natal clinics or lack of any or all of these adjuncts.
It is difficult to obtain information of the conditions which may
result in the increased susceptibility of the patient to infection.
Professor Mellanby and his co-workers have recently brought
forward evidence regarding the importance of Vitamin A in enabling
the mother to resist infection—the vitamin being administered in
concentrated form as radiostoleum, and given in small doses in the
weeks immediately preceeding confinement and in the week after.
Radiostoleum contains 10 times as much Vitamin A as Cod Liver
Oil. It is known that diet can affect the raising and lowering of the
resistance of animals to infection. Young animals placed on diets
deficient in Vitamin A die of sepsis. During pregnancy there is
a considerable drain of this particular vitamin from the mother
to supply the foetus. The pregnant woman may be in special
danger of vitamin deficiency, for she has not only to supply the
needs of her own body but also the needs of a rapidly growing
organism whose requirements are relatively much higher than those
of the adult. It was on this assumption that Professor Mellanby
treated women with excess of Vitamin A both as a prophylactic
and as a curative measure. Although the numbers treated under
Professor Mellanby's supervision were small, other workers in the
same field have published their results, and the statistics seem to
point to the efficiency of Vitamin A in the prevention of Puerperal
Sepsis.
Professor Cameron in a paper read at the Glasgow Congress
of the Royal Sanitary Institute stated that very encouraging results
had been obtained in the Maternity Hospital with which he was connected
from the prophylactic use of concentrated Vitamin A and
the use of a haemolytic streptococcus vaccine administered just
before full time. He claimed that should his experience be confirmed
by other observers a distinct advance in obstetric practice
will be registered.
As far as normal cases are concerned, it is hoped that
measures which would increase the immunity of the individual
will be found and prove successful.
But there is another class of case which will not be touched
by any such measures.