View report page

73
It is difficult to describe the amount of work which the outbreak
threw on the medical staff, as all the bacteriological work
is done in our own laboratory. In addition to which we do the
bacteriological work for the Staines Rural District. This work
has to be done before the normal day's work is commenced.
The increased work necessitated the employment of increased
staff, which was accomplished by temporary part time assistants
carrying on the various clinics to relieve the permanent staff.
One of the greatest difficulties on occasions like these is to
prevent certain sections of the laity from stampeding and demanding
things which are perfectly useless when dealing with
theria. The old ideas still stick, and one has to hammer repeatedly
at the fact that diphtheria is a personal disease and not a
general diffusible miasma.
Diphtheria Antitoxin.
Boxes Containing a Sterile Antitoxin syringe and the
sary dressings, etc., are kept at the two Police Stations so as to
be available in case of emergency.
During 1929, 117 vials of Antitoxin of 8,000 units each were
supplied to Medical practitioners.
Enteric Fever.
There were 6 cases notified during the year, the majority of
which were Para-typhoid B.
Erysipelas.
39 cases of this disease were notified, of whom 26 were West
middlesex hospital cases. 19 were non-residents in this district.
Ophthalmia Neonatorum.
See page 92.
Puerperal Fever.
6 cases of this diseases were notified; 3 of these were notified
from the west Middlesex Hospital. These were patients not
usually resident in this district.