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53
on Saturday mornings. The Saturday morning clinic is still being
carrued on, but it is now attended mostly by children under school
ags. It was explained that if the response from Southfield Road
and the County Schools was favourable, it would be impossible
to carry out the Schick testing without outside assistance. A circular
was issued to all the parents, and it was stated that acceptance was
to be entirely voluntary, and that the immunisation could be
carried out by the family doctor if the patents so desired. There
were 484 acceptances from Southfield Road School, and 257 from
the County School. Arrangements were made with Dr. Guy
Bousfield to do the Schick test. Dr. Bousfield has probably done
more Schick testing" and immunisation than any other person in this
country, and we were fortunate in obtaining his services. In the
other schools the problem was not so urgent and Dr. Howell and
myself were able to arrange to carry out the work. It is impossible
at the present time to give a full report of the work done, a.s it is
Shell going on. It will be more convenient to give an account of
in at a later stage. It may be mentioned that up to the end of
February, 1933, we had Schick tested 1,922 children and immunised
partly or wholly 1,909 children.
Because of the necessity of controlling the epidemic in the
Schools we had to concentrate our attention very largely on the
children of school age. It is recognised, though, that if preventive
measures are undertaken to stamp out Diphtheria, it is essential
that a large proportion of the most susceptible subjects—children'
of pre-school age^should be immunised. Recent work has-shown
that although fifty to. seventy per cent, of children of school age
have been protected, it was not until at least an additional thirty
per cent. or more of those under five years had been immunised
any fall in the Diphtheria rate of the community as a whole
was produced. If success is to be attained, our efforts must be
drected towards the protection of the pre-school child who is exposed
to greater risk from his higher susceptibility and from home
contact with older children attending school.
The tendency recently has been to urge immunisation at
on earlier age than was formerly the practice. Formerly it was
usual to delay immunisation until the second year of life, but It
has been found that the supposed maternal transmitted immunity
in infants varies considerably during the first twelve months of life.
Compared with other districts, we must consider that our
compaign has been very successful. This has bene due partly to
the severe type of disease which was experienced. Opposition has