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7
Diphtheria.
There have been deaths and 54 notifications
of this disease during the year. This gives a case
mortality of 16.6 per cent., as compared with 18.1
for the previous four years, and 22.5 the case
mortality amongst persons treated on the first day
of illness in the M.A. B. Hospitals.
It is difficult to compare the statistics of
different places, but it must always be remembered
that this town is an average community, with a fair
proportion of the different classes, trades and manufactures.
For the past it would therefore appear that our
case mortality is about the average. Within the
last few months a new factor has been introduced
into the treatment of this disease by the perfection
of the Anti-toxin treatment.
Anti-toxin is prepared in the following manner.
Healthy horses are chosen, and they are inoculated
with Tuberculin and Mallein to discover whether
the recognized re-action appear or not. If no indications
are shown of the presence of Tuberculosis or
Glanders, the only diseases likely to be transmitted
to man, the animals are submitted to rep?ated
inoculations of the Diphtheria toxin till they become
completely immunised. Scrupulous cleanliness is
observed whilst the horse is under treatment, and
the discomfort to the animal is quite infinitesimal
compared with the kind of work such animals are
daily put to. The greater the number of injectionsof
toxin injected into the horse, the stronger is the
resulting Anti-toxin, and the smaller is the amount
of Anti-toxin required to be used on the sufferer
from Diphtheria.
The point of greatest importance in this mode
of treatment is that it should be commenced at the
very earliest moment.