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9
hospital was impracticable in the great majority of cases
the best means possible for treating the disease in the
home had to be devised. One of the most important points
in the treatment of the disease is that the family should
be treated as a whole, and in order to attain that end
the Public Health Department assumed complete responsibility
in most eases for investigation, treatment and
following up in the home. Local doctors co-operated
very helpfully in this scheme. Reliance was placed mainly
in the use of a proprietary preparation which, when
properly applied, effects a cure in 36 hours. Hitherto,
a great deal of labour and expense has been incurred in
the disinfestation of clothing and bedding after scabies.
If done for a large number of cases this burden becomes
immense. In the light of the recent experiments of
K. Mellanby, in which he found great difficulty in transferring
infection experimentally except by personal
contact, it was decided to try the effect of omitting
routine disinfestation altogether. The results to date
show a complete justification of this method. In the cases
in which the treatment has been correctly applied and
an immediate cure obtained there has been no evidence
of re-infection from clothing or bedding. During 1941
90 infested persons from 41 families received treatment.
This number does not include those who received the
treatment as contacts only.