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number of cases it is by no means uncommon for no
medical man to be called in, and, unfortunately, in some
few instances, even when medical assistance has been
sought, none of the secretions of the throat or nose have
been submitted to bacteriological examination for the
determination of the disease from which the patient is
suffering, and it is these cases, which are possibly of a
mild nature, that are the occasion of much of the
increase in the number of cases of Diphtheria, more
particularly in the case of children who have been so
little affected during the few days of their unrecognised
condition that they are allowed to return to school in a
highly infective condition.
The Council has placed at the service of all medical
practitioners in the district, not only a supply of
Diphtheria Antitoxin, but also has made the necessary
arrangements for having a bacteriological examination
made free of charge, so that on the score of cost no
reason should now exist for any medical practitioner not
availing himself of the facilities placed at his disposal.
The Council, it would be well here to mention, has done
this most excellent service in the way of securing early
detection and treatment of this most fatal form of
. disease since 1901, and it was, I believe, one of the first,
if not the first, Councils to take such steps.
With regard to a certain class of cases which in
themselves are not either typically clinical or bacteriologically
true Diphtheria, the difficulty in dealing with
them arises. The symptoms are practically only
identical with an ordinary case of sore throat, possibly
associated with some slight nasal discharge, and on
bacteriological examination of swabbings from the throat