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19
EAR. NOSE AND THROAT CLINIC.
The weekly Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic has continued under
the clinical charge of Dr. A. Cammock, M.B., B Ch., D.L.O.
EYE CLINIC.
The Clinic continues under the clinical charge of Dr.
Hilton Ho.
The services of a dispensing optician and an orthopist are
available to patients.
ORTHOPAEDIC CLINIC.
Mr. K. Dalliwall, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon in charge
of the Clinic reports that the work of the clinic has continued
on much the same lines as in the past, the bulk of the work
being concerned with providing physiotherapy services for schoolchildren
in an environment which is more suitable for them than
that of a general hospital.
PAEDIATRIC CLINIC.
The clinic continued under the clinical care of Dr. Elchon
Hinden, Paediatrician to Whipps Cross Hospital, who reports as
follows;
" In spring and early summer, 1962, there was an epidemic
of german measles (rubella) in the towns lying to the east of the
County of London, of which Walthamstow is one. Among the victims
were several women recently pregnant I don't know how many.
Towards the end of that year and in January 1963 at least five
affected babies were born, two or three of them in our local
maternity hospital, the others in a neighbouring borough. I have
seen these five myself; there may well be others who have been
seen by other paediatricians.
As a rule, maternal disease does not affect the unborn child.
The womb is not easily penetrated by infection, and the placenta
which joins the child to his mother is a strong shield to ward
off harmful influences. So pneumonia and tonsillitis and
appendicitis do not disturb the foetus in his still, dark sea.
But the virus infections do pierce his defences. The fierce ones,
like smallpox and influenza, slay him; he dies and is cast out as a
miscarriage. But the mild ones, and especially german measles,
do not kill they merely maim. Three organs in particular are
disorganised the ear, the eye, and the heart. So the children
are born deaf, or blind, or with congenital heart disease, or
with all three. Of the five children I have personally examined,
four are blind (three in both eyes); two are deaf certainly, a
third child probably so; two suffer from severe heart disease;
and at least two are mentally retarded.