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The Health of Barking
those things are concerned which are named accessory food substances, and which
sometimes are called vitamins. Mary knew that the chocolate-covered tablets
which she was taking contained vitamins A and D, and that these are necessary
food substances which could be taken by routine.
Another advance which has been made in the past few years is what is known
as examination for the rhesus factor. I got into a bit of trouble with this with
John and Mary, as is set forth in the following part of my Report.
. Blood Tests.
When the doctor wanted to get a specimen of Mary's blood for a special
examination there was quite a how-to-do, to put it mildly. Mary's mother was up
in arms about it. Things like that were never done when she was young ! John
didn't take any more favourable a view, and although he didn't talk about it he
remembered that in the army blood tests were often taken to find out whether
men were suffering from a disease from which they ought not to suffer. All this
led to a lot of talk and bother, but the plain simple fact is that such blood is taken
for a purpose which was quite unknown when Mary's mother was a young woman,
and it has nothing whatsoever to do with what John was thinking about.
The difficulty is to explain what it is all about. In the personal interview
the doctor had with Mary it was possible to explain it in the spoken word easier
than it is in a statement in writing, but the gist of what the doctor told Mary is as
follows, and at least the first part of the explanation is easy.
The first reason is to do with the fact that blood is of different types and you
want to know what type of blood a woman has in order to make quite sure that
you do not give the wrong type if she needs a transfusion.
The second reason is much more difficult to explain. Curiously enough, there
are some people who have as part of their blood a substance which is not found
in other people's blood, and which is indeed so different that if it were introduced
there it would be broken up. This substance was first discovered in the blood
of the Rhesus monkeys and is, therefore, called the Rhesus Factor. Persons who
have it are called Rhesus Positive and those who have not are called Rhesus
Negative. If a woman who has not this substance in her blood has a child by a
father who has—i.e., who is Rhesus Positive—and if the child takes after the father,
then the substance (Rhesus Factor) in the child's blood inherited from the father
may filter into the mother's blood and the mother will immediately set about to
break it up. The machinery which she sets up to break up this substance in time
diffuses into the child itself, and, of course, is hostile to the child.
We in Barking believe that to be forewarned is to be forearmed, and although
we arc quite willing to admit that at this stage we are unable to do so much about
it as we would wish, it certainly is wise to know beforehand what is likely to arise,
and if the amount we can do isn't a great deal it is at least something.
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