View report page

54
5,000 BACTERIOLOGICAL EXAMINATIONS
MADE IN THE LAMBETH BOROUGH
LABORATORY.
(Special Report presented to the Council on March 29th, 1906.)
The Bacteriological Laboratory was established in 1899,
and, since that date, a total of 5,000 Bacteriological Examinations
have been conducted therein, in connection with the
following specimens :—
(a) Sputa (suspected Consumption) 1190
(b) Bloods (suspected Typhoid Fever) 575
(c) Throat and Nose Membranes and
charges (suspected Diphtheria) 3188
(d) Other Materials, e.g., Milks, Ice Creams,
Urines, Tumours, Pus", Crusts from
Skin Disease, Ham, etc. 47
Total 5000
The number of examinations made each year are as
follows:-
Year. No. of Exams. Year. No. of Exams.
1899 389 1903 525
1900 703 1904 447
1901 479 1905 1874
1902 466 1906 (up to March) 117
Total 5000
These numbers shew a yearly average of 700, or a daily
average of 2, examinations carried out up to date at the
Laboratory since its establishment in 1899, and justify the
late Vestry, and the present Borough Council, in having
established locally, and maintained, for the sole use of
Lambeth, such an Institution, without which no Sanitary
Authority is properly equipped for battling against infectious
disease outbreaks. The great value of bacteriological
examinations in doubtful cases of infectious disease is now
universally acknowledged, and there can be no doubt as to