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145
Sir John Broadbent.
"Immunisation of the Community.
All the evidence goes to prove that this is a practical proposition.
For its success it is, however, essential that preventive
inoculation should be carried out in children at an early age,
preferably one to four years, and that a large proportion of the
child population should be immunised. America and Canada were
far ahead of this country in carrying out general preventive measures
against diphtheria.
In 1921 Park and Zingler immunised 52,000 children in New
York and by the end of 1923 out of 180,000 children half had been
immunised against diphtheria. In 1929, 212,000 immunisations
were carried out in New York City and the mortality from diphtheria
declined 70 per cent. and the case incidence 65 per cent.
In Philadelphia, with a population of over two million, by
1929 364,000 children had been immunised and efforts were made
to immunise all susceptible children, with the result that in 1930
the case incidence had fallen to .4 per 1,000 so that no hospital for
diphtheria was required. In Detroit, Chicago and other large
cities throughout the United States, similar measures were taken
to stamp out diphtheria.
In Canada preventive inoculation has been carried out throughout
the Dominion since 1923, and by 1929 it was estimated that
500,000 children had been immunised. As a result the mortality
from diphtheria fell from 23.6 per 100,000 in 1921 to 9.4 in 1929.
The case incidence varied in different provinces. As an
instance of the striking success that may be attained by preventive
inoculation I would quote Hamilton, Ontario, a town with 120,000
inhabitants in which the case incidence fell from 6.3 per 1,000 in
1922 to .09 per 1,000 in 1928.
In our own country the first immunisation centre was opened
in Holborn in 1922 and during the next four years about 1,000
children were Schick tested and 600 immunised.
In 1926 inoculation clinics were opened at Westminster and
Camberwell.
Since then there has been a gradual and progressive increase
with the number of preventive clinics opened in London and
throughout the country.