View report page

92
As a preliminary to typing in connection with bed isolation,
Dr. Joyce Wright did a considerable amount of investigation
during 1937 of types found in patients nursed in ordinary
conditions of communal isolation and subjoined is a short
report on her work which she has been good enough to submit.
" Since March, 1937, a study of cross infection by the
various hemolytic streptococci types has been in progress in
the scarlet fever wards of the llendon Isolation Hospital. The
procedure has been as follows:—from all patients and nurses
in these wards swabs have been taken from the throat and
from any suppurative lesion found (a) on admission, (b) at
a routine weekly swabbing, (c) at the onset of any other
possible streptococcal infection, e.g., rhinitis, otitis media,
cervical adenitis. The bacteriological work has been performed
at University College Hospital Medical School, all
hemolytic streptococci isolated being typed by the Griffith
slide agglutination method.
The work in 1937 has been along the same lines as that
of Drs. V. D. Allison and W. A. Brown, described in their
paper ' Re-infection as a cause of complications in scarlet
fever wards,' Journal of Hygiene, 1937.
A considerable degree of change of streptococcal type has
been observed, particularly in the autumn months when the
number of scarlet fever patients was high.
The work has been preliminary to a comparative study
of the incidence of streptococcal cross-infection and clinical
complications in patients in scarlet fever wards where
(a) routine nursing, and (b) bed isolation nursing are in use.
A detailed report of the entire work is to be made at a later
date."
AVERAGE STAY IN HOSPITAL of recovered cases of scarlet
fever (including those with dual infections) was 37.5 days.
This represents an increase of 1.7 days compared Avith the
corresponding figure for the previous year 35.8 days and
is 0.4 days more than the average of 37.1 days over the sevenyear
period 1930-1936 inclusive.