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67
REPORT UPON THE WORK OF THE
PATHOLOGICAL LABORATORY
For the Year 1937
I include herewith in this Annual Report a special report by Dr. E. M. Hill,
who has done much admirable work at the Pathological Unit attached to the
Barking Hospital.
The Report speaks for itself. It cannot, however, be other than a source of
satisfaction to me that this development I so earnestly recommended has proved
itself to be a success beyond any hopes I held out, and has been of more benefit
to the people of Barking than I could see at the time I recommended it.
It is strictly speaking unnecessary for me to add to Dr. Hill's thanks to Dr.
Camps of Chelmsford, but I would like to say how heartily I agree with her, and
how particularly fortunate are the people of Barking that Dr. Camps' Laboratory
is relatively near by, and that Dr. Camps has been so untiring in his kindness.
"As was stated in last year's Report, a pathological unit was opened in the
grounds of the Barking Isolation Hospital late in 1936, in order to extend to the
Barking Public Health Services, some of the most recent advances in pathological
methods.
This laboratory is not intended in any way to replace the services of the Counties
Public Health Laboratory, nor to be used as a routine laboratory.
In every Public Health Service, problems arise which cannot be submitted to
a routine laboratory, but must be dealt with on the spot: if no laboratory is
available, such problems are left unsolved to the detriment of the service. If a
laboratory is available, the Medical Officers are brought closely into touch with the
scientific aspects of medical problems, and the pathologist is able to come into
personal contact with the patients, a state of affairs which has much to commend it.