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iii.
233 over 1946. This is proving a valuable service, and we are
fortunate in having an excellent body of women doing these
duties who take an interest in the work and who understand the
peculiar difficulties which might arise if discretion and tact were
not shown.
The Ambulance Service also showed expansion. The calls
for help rose from 15,274 to 18,368, and the mileage covered from
88,255 miles to 146,199 miles. Details of the work are set out on
pages 36—42 inclusive. One major catastrophe occurred in
October, when a collision between two S.R. electric trains near
South Croydon Station resulted in over 120 casualties being dealt
with by the service and ambulances from surrounding boroughs.
The service was thanked and congratulated by the railway company
on the expedition and efficiency with which the emergency
was met. All casualties had been evacuated from the area in
under an hour and a half.
In addition to accident work, the service dealt with over 4,000
private removals from hospitals, etc, and nearly 7,000 departmental
calls. The number of accidents to children, unfortunately,
rose fromt 324 in 1946 to 379, the reason for the increase being
more accidents in the streets.
Attendances at the Venereal Diseases Clinic showed a decline
from the peak number reached in 1946. New cases, however,
increased from 1,143 to 1,654, there being a very marked increase
in new female cases, from 411 to 1,076. The demobilisation of
large numbers of service personnel is possibly the reason. The
apparent discrepancy between the increases in new cases and
decrease in total attendance is explained by the greatly curtailed
length of treatment brought about by the use of penicillin in
gonococcal infections.
Regulation 33.B. came to an end at the end of the year. This
regulation was intended to give medical officers powers to trace
sources of infection and to bring pressure to bear upon contacts
found infected to undergo treatment. As the operation of the
regulation had to rely upon information given by a patient on the
source of his or her infection, it was never very effective. More
women were informed upon by men than men by women, and thenumbers
brought to notice were fewer in 1947 than in 1946. There
were 10 cases in all, of whom 4 were men and 6 women. All the
contacts concerned were traced, examined and received treatment.