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Finance Department,
Town Hall, Dyne Road,
Kilburn, N.W. 6.
July, 1930.
APPENDIX D.
REPORT ON ARTIFICIAL LIGHT TREATMENT FOR THE YEAR ENDED
31ST DECEMBER, 1930.
BY
H. HALDIN DAVIS, M.D., M.R.C.P., F.R.C.S., Dermatologist to the Council.
The great event of the year 1930 was the opening of the new Health Centre at Stonebridge at
the end of April. The privilege of working in a new building well equipped with all modern appliances
has been much appreciated bv the staff. We would also point to the figures which bear eloquent
testimony to the popularity of the Centre with the patients. The Sunlight Department at Stonebridge
is now provided not only with a room of adequate size in which are housed a double carbon arc and
also two mercury vapour lamps, but also in addition with a good bath room fitted with plunge and
shower baths and ample dressing accommodation. The two mercury vapour lamps are so arranged
that two or three children can be treated seated together on a bench and receive even irradiation, front
and back, simultaneously. As a general rule, all patients commence their treatment with a course of
carbon arc radiation and the mercury vapour lamps are reserved for those who do not appear to make
satisfactory progress with carbon alone.
The opening of the Stonebridge Clinic has also indirectly been of great advantage to the original
Sunlight Department which has now been working over four years in the No. 1 Clinic at Willesden
Lane. Space has become available for the more satisfactory accommodation of the Department which
has now climbed out of the cellar and established itself on the second floor. Here there is a good room
with adequate ventilation for the actual Light treatment itself and the Medical Officer is now provided
with a separate consulting room, and no longer has to examine patients and interview parents in the
corner of an apartment crowded with noisy children in an atmosphere wherein the temperature often
reaches 70° or more. The chief facilities in which the Sunlight Department at No. 1. Clinic is still
lacking are baths and decent waiting accommodation. There are no baths at all, although these are
really an essential part of the equipment of a Light Clinic and the patients and their parents are compelled
to use the landing and staircase as waiting room. Here they are much exposed to fierce draughts,
which are not the same thing by any means as fresh air. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the rival
attractions of the new Stonebridge Centre which supplies the needs of certain parts of the district
which were formerly supplied by Willesden Lane, the old Clinic maintains its popularity and the
numbers of the patients and their attendances show only a slight falling off from last year.
The X-ray apparatus is still housed in the basement where it is employed principally for the
treatment of ringworm of the scalp and also to a smaller extent for chronic eczema and sometimes for
acne. Ringworm of the scalp for the treatment of which the Council's Skin Department was originally
opened nearly nineteen years ago has now become a comparatively rare disease. In 1914 about 120
cases were treated with X-rays and there was always a long waiting list. In 1930 only 13 cases were
treated. The diminution in the numbers is very gratifying and shows that the efforts of the Council
to stamp out this annoying complaint which in the past has been the cause of very serious interruption
to the education of large numbers of school children, have attained a large measure of success.