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accommodation partly accounts for this increase as it necessitates
the patients being kept at home, where in most cases the means
of isolation is of the poorest, thus in many instances the case
becomes a centre of infection.
Of this year's cases, seventeen occurred in six houses as
follows :—in one house five cases, another four, and at four
other houses two cases each
It is highly important that Diphtheria patients should be
promptly isolated.
I trust the building of the New Isolation Hospital will be
pushed on with all speed, the advantages of an Infectious
Hospital are great, not only on account of the difficulties
existing in the way of isolation in private houses, but also
because the serum treatment is there more readily resorted to
than is possible in private practice. That this treatment of
Diphtheria is most valuable in reducing the mortality has now
passed beyond the region of doubt, as may be seen by referring
to the reports on this subject by the Hospital Superintendents
of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, an extract of which is
given below.
The report of the Medical Superintendents upon the us
of the Antitoxin Serum in the treatment of Diphtheria in the
Hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylurnns Board during the yeai
1896, draws the conclusion that the improved results in the
Diphtheria cases treated during the year are due to.—
(i.) A great reduction in the mortality of cases
brought under treatment on the first three days
of illness.
(ii.) The lowering of the combined general mortality
to a point below that of any former year.
(iii.) The still more remarkable reduction in the
mortality of the laryngeal cases.