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17
stations, chemists' shops, &c., throughout the district,
where they could be readily obtained by medical men
on the outbreak of the disease. The medical man
having used the apparatus as directed would return
the box to the laboratory, when an examination would
be made of its contents, and within twenty-four hours
the result communicated to the medical attendant.
If the bacillus is discovered it is Diphtheria, and the
more numerous the bacilli the greater the danger;
but if none are found it is only a suspicious case,
and the patient and friends are relieved from anxiety.
The duty of the medical attendant would not
cease here, for on recovery he would send a further
specimen to the laboratory, and keep the case in
quarantine as infectious until the bacillus could no
longer be found.
As shown in the paper read by Dr. Seaton at
the International Health Congress in Buda Pesth,
Dr. Lake, M.O.H, (Guildford Rural) has arrested
an epidemic of Diphtheria by inspecting all the
children in the schools affected. All suspicious
throats were isolated and kept away from school,
playing havoc with the school attendances ; but if
a laboratory had been at hand, an examination would
have shown at once which children were infectious
and which were not.
It will readily be seen that such an establishment
could be beneficially worked in the extended
district if under one control, whilst the present
divisions would lead to frequent delays in controlling
the spread of a disease in which time is life.
From the foregoing remarks and statistics it
will be seen that in order to form a fairly normal
community it is necessary to unite the five separate
districts into one administrative area, and that such
an amalgamation is likely to improve statistical
returns; to afford the Sanitary Authority greater