View report page

33
gratuitously, on condition that the injections are administered
either by the Medical Officer of Health himself or
under his immediate supervision.
(3) That the Medical Officer of Heatth be authorised
to make use of antitoxin for curative purposes, gratuitously,
in cases where immediate removal to Hospital is
impossible or inadvisable, on condition that the antitoxin
is administered by him, and that subsequent removal to
the Hospital of the patient first agreed to.
(4) That in order to again call attention to these
measures directed by the Council in this respect, the
Medical Officer re-issue to medical men practising in the
district, with the necessary modifications, the circular
letter of June, 1909, with regard to the prevention of
diphtheria.
The adoption of these precautions will, in our opinion,
save lives, and incidentally will avoid much unnecessary
expense. As, however, these injections will involve extra work
for the Medical Officer of Health, the Committee recommend
that he be paid 10s. 6d. for each visit made by him after 6 p.m."
The Order is a most useful and valuable one. It makes
certain things that have in many places been done sub rosa, legal,
and it is only to be hoped that the generality of the profession will
recognise their obvious duty, and take advantage of its provisions
in all cases of doubt and difficulty. I am not myself convinced
of the advantages of the indiscriminate use of antitoxin as a
prophylactic, and my own practice has been not to so use
it except in the presence of definite enlargement or
inflammation of the tonsils. I firmly believe in the use of antitoxin
in many cases of scarlet fever, notably those in which there
is pseudo-membranous exudation on the tonsils, and I attribute