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Report on Work at the Borough Infectious Diseases
Hospital for the year 1934.
Dr. Landon reports as follows :—
During the year 1934, 1,290 patients were admitted to Hospital.
This, it is believed, is the largest number admitted in any
year and was chiefly due to the incidence of Scarlet Fever which
can be said to have reached epidemic proportions. In all, 1,468
patients were treated during the year, 175 patients having remained
under treatment at the end of 1933. The number of
Scarlet Fever patients admitted was 796, compared with 569
during 1933; the number of Diphtheria admissions was 374, compared
with 176 during the preceding year. Table 17 shows the
variety of conditions treated during the year and the full use that
was made of our cubicle accommodation.
The innovation was made during 1934, of giving antiscarlatinal
serum to every patient admitted to the general scarlet
fever wards. The results appear fully to justify this procedure
even in mild cases. Complications are reduced to a minimum
and desquamation is slight or even entirely absent. These factors
admit of the earlier and safe discharge of patients and the fact
that it was possible to discharge 853 cases of scarlet fever during
the year while observing, carefully, the recommendations of the
Ministry of Health with regard to bed spacing, is an indication
of the efficacy of the general serum administration. The cost of
serum is, of course, increased but as its use permits, with great
regularity, of a shortened stay in hospital, the cost of treatment
per patient is, on the whole, diminished. In addition a larger
number of patients can be passed through the scarlet fever wards.
It will be noticed, under the heading of Scarlet Fever, that, of
a series of 500 consecutive cases treated with serum, 87 per cent.