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have been foreseen, or any other circumstances as the Authority may in
any particular case determine. Persons for whom accommodation is
provided are to pay for it. The Local Authority has power also to
make arrangements for promoting the welfare of persons who are blind,
deaf or dumb, or of other persons who are substantially and permanently
handicapped by illness, injury, or congenital deformity, or such other
disability as may be described by the Minister. The service is administered
locally by the Welfare Department (Area Welfare Officer Mr. H. G.
Plummer, 18, Station Road, Harrow. Tel. No. Harrow 1252).
AMBULANCE SERVICE
The ambulance service maintained by the County Council is run in
association with the fire service.
Ambulances for the removal of accident cases are housed in or
adjacent to Fire Stations (Tel. Nos. Harrow, Pinner, Byron, Wordsworth,
Grimsdyke, Underhill 2222); those for sick persons are to be placed
as close as possible to main hospitals, including the isolation hospitals.
LABORATORY SERVICE.
The examination of clinical material of public health significance
is carried of free of cost to the patient and to the doctor at the Central
Public Health Laboratory, Colindale Avenue, London, N.W.9 (Tel. No.
Colindale 6041 and 4081). Most samples submitted are throat swabs for
the presence of organisms of diphtheria or of the hemolytic streptococcus.
Another group of samples is of dejecta for the presence of organisms of
the typhoid or dysentery group. Specimens of sputa are submitted
for examination for the presence of tubercle bacillus. Blood serum is
sent for examination of the reaction indicating the infection of the body
by the typhoid group. Cough plates are examined for the presence of
the organisms of whooping cough. In general the examination is carried
out of material which will be of aid in the early diagnosis of infectious
conditions, one purpose of the laboratory being to carry out investigations
of public health significance.
It is not intended that other clinical material shall be sent, this
work being carried out at the laboratories of certain hospitals. The
laboratory does not deal in the ordinary way with the examination of
specimens of those suspected to be suffering from venereal disease, which
are sent to hospitals which provide clinics for the treatment of those
suffering from these diseases.
Apart from the examination of this clinical material, the laboratory
also carries out the routine bacteriological examination of such foods as
milk or ice-cream, and examines other food stuffs considered possibly to
have been the source of a food poisoning. The staff of the laboratory
also carry out investigations in the field in the case of various forms of
outbreak, however spread.
Another service provided by the laboratory is the issue of certain
preparations such as lymph for vaccination against smallpox, and antigens
for the immunisation of the population against diphtheria.