- Email: [email protected]
THERAPEUTIC PYREXIA
321 to the effects of bacteria
or
their toxins, and charac-
terised by hypertension in life and circulatory changes in many organs outside the kidney after death. To this group pathologists and physicians now attach the
of "ischsemic nephritis " and the first point of my communication was to stress the importance of observations of the blood pressure in order that cases belonging to this group might not escape detection.
name
I am, Sir, yours Harley-street, W.,
faithfully,
Feb. 3rd, 1934.
by the Schick test, is similar city. There are no records
to that found in any of diphtheria having occurred in the oasis, but it would not be safe, of course, to depend on this, and there were no facilities for a bacteriological survey of the population.
I am,
Sir,
yours faithfully, R. TANNER HEWLETT.
Seaman’s Hospital, Greenwich, Feb. 5th, 1934.
T. IZOD BENNETT.
THERAPEUTIC PYREXIA
To the Editor DIPHTHERIA IMMUNITY AMONG ISOLATED RACES To the Editor
of
THE LANCET
SiR,—With reference to your leading article last week on this subject attention may be directed to .another recent survey of an isolated race carried out by Dr. M. Khalil Bey for the Egyptian public health department (Cairo : Government Press, 1933). This was in the oasis of Siwa, which is situated in the western desert, 300 kilometres from any inhabited place of cosmopolitan character-well isolated, therefore, though not perhaps to the extent that was formerly the case. The population in 1927 numbered 3795, of whom 922 were children less than 15 years of age. The Schick test was applied to 123 boys under 15 years of age, of whom 24 were positive : of 58
boys aged 2-5 years, 20 (or 35 per cent.) were positive ; boys 5-13 years, 4 (or 6 per cent.) were positive. ’That is to say, the susceptibility to diphtheria, judged of 65
of
THE LANCET
,
SiR,-The letter from Dr. Le Bas in your issue of Jan. 27th (p. 214) has interested me very much as I have been working on this subject for the past two years. The preliminary experiments carried out in the physics department of Armstrong College have already been described.l The work has since been carried on under the auspices of the Medical Research Council. The apparatus has been much improved and is being used for the treatment of G.P.I. at the Newcastle General Hospital. The clinical results are highly satisfactory but they are not yet felt to be sufficiently extensive to justify publication. I am,
Sir, yours faithfully, S. F. EVANS, M.Sc.
Newcastle General Hospital, Feb. 5th, 1934. 1
The Use of High Frequency Electric Fields to Raise Body By W. E. Curtis and S. F. Evans. Proc. Univ. Durham Philos. Soc., vol. ix., Part 2, p. 61.
Temperature.
PUBLIC HEALTH Preventive Treatment of Adolescents in London
INFECTIOUS DISEASE
A YEAR ago Mr. Somerville Hastings and Miss E. Rickards, F.R.C.S., brought before the London county council the desirability of providing preventive and curative treatment for young people between the ages of 14 and 16 years. There is, as Sir George Newman pointed out seven years ago in " The Health of the School Child," a breakdown in the medical service when the boy or girl leaves school. The adolescent is no one’s care and the majority are not even covered by welfare schemes although urgently needing continued education in matters of ihealth. The L.C.C. central public health committee s advised that the position in regard to welfare schemes is now worse than it was then. By the Education Act of 1921 young persons above the age of 14 attending secondary and day classes in London are entitled to the benefit of the L.C.C. school medical service, but there is to-day nothing of the kind in connexion with the voluntary day continuation classes or the evening institutes. On Tuesday last the L.C.C. endorsed the recommendation of its public health committee that for ’an experimental year arrangements should be made for the inspection and treatment of students attending all the day continuation classes and three of the evening institutes. Inspection is
IN ENGLAND AND WALES DURING THE WEEK ENDED
to take
between three and six months after admission. The school medical records of the children are to be available, the students are to be informed that inspection is voluntary, and parents invited to attend. It is believed that 75 per cent. of the scholars will agree, making about 4000 in all to examine. Little extra cost would, it is said, be incurred on account of the daytime treatment, since most of the Ecommittees undertaking this work are now paid on a block-grant basis.
place
27th, 1934 following cases of infectious - Voc
The number of cases in the Infectious Hospitals of the London County Council on Jan. 30th-31st was as follows : Small-pox, 24 (last week 21) ; scarlet fever, 2215 ; diphtheria, 2071 ; enteric fever, 7 ; measles, 1237 ; whooping-cough, 274 ; puerperal fever, 28 mothers (plus 9 babies); encephalitis lethargica, 260 ; poliomyelitis, 5 ;"other diseases," 193. At St. Margaret’s Hospital there were 19 babies (plus 8 mothers) with ophthalmia neonatorum.
Deaths.-In 118 great towns, including London, there was no death from small-pox, 1 (0) from enteric fever, 59 (21) from measles, 15 (4) from scarlet fever, 24 (8) from whooping-cough, 60 (8) from dysentery, 37 (9) from diarrhoea and enteritis under two years, and 67 (20) from influenza. The figures in parentheses are those for London itself. The deaths from influenza during the past few weeks (working backwards) have been as follows : 67, 87, 100, 109, 83, 97, 95, 70, 59. The 363 deaths during the first four weeks of the year
compare with 5230 deaths for the corresponding weeks of 1933. Nine deaths were this week attributed to influenza at Birmingham, 5 at Glasgow, 3 each at Walthamstow, Oldham, and Stoke-on-Trent; no more than two in any other great town. Seven fatal cases of measles occurred at Liverpool, 6 each at Leeds and Manchester. Manchester reported 3 deaths from scarlet fever. Of the fatal cases of diphtheria 8 occurred at Liverpool, 5 at Huddersfield, 4 each at East Ham, Manchester, and Birmingham.
The number of stillbirths notified during the week 274 (corresponding to a rate of 44 per 1000 total births), including 38 in London.
was
or
their toxins, and charac-
terised by hypertension in life and circulatory changes in many organs outside the kidney after death. To this group pathologists and physicians now attach the
of "ischsemic nephritis " and the first point of my communication was to stress the importance of observations of the blood pressure in order that cases belonging to this group might not escape detection.
name
I am, Sir, yours Harley-street, W.,
faithfully,
Feb. 3rd, 1934.
by the Schick test, is similar city. There are no records
to that found in any of diphtheria having occurred in the oasis, but it would not be safe, of course, to depend on this, and there were no facilities for a bacteriological survey of the population.
I am,
Sir,
yours faithfully, R. TANNER HEWLETT.
Seaman’s Hospital, Greenwich, Feb. 5th, 1934.
T. IZOD BENNETT.
THERAPEUTIC PYREXIA
To the Editor DIPHTHERIA IMMUNITY AMONG ISOLATED RACES To the Editor
of
THE LANCET
SiR,—With reference to your leading article last week on this subject attention may be directed to .another recent survey of an isolated race carried out by Dr. M. Khalil Bey for the Egyptian public health department (Cairo : Government Press, 1933). This was in the oasis of Siwa, which is situated in the western desert, 300 kilometres from any inhabited place of cosmopolitan character-well isolated, therefore, though not perhaps to the extent that was formerly the case. The population in 1927 numbered 3795, of whom 922 were children less than 15 years of age. The Schick test was applied to 123 boys under 15 years of age, of whom 24 were positive : of 58
boys aged 2-5 years, 20 (or 35 per cent.) were positive ; boys 5-13 years, 4 (or 6 per cent.) were positive. ’That is to say, the susceptibility to diphtheria, judged of 65
of
THE LANCET
,
SiR,-The letter from Dr. Le Bas in your issue of Jan. 27th (p. 214) has interested me very much as I have been working on this subject for the past two years. The preliminary experiments carried out in the physics department of Armstrong College have already been described.l The work has since been carried on under the auspices of the Medical Research Council. The apparatus has been much improved and is being used for the treatment of G.P.I. at the Newcastle General Hospital. The clinical results are highly satisfactory but they are not yet felt to be sufficiently extensive to justify publication. I am,
Sir, yours faithfully, S. F. EVANS, M.Sc.
Newcastle General Hospital, Feb. 5th, 1934. 1
The Use of High Frequency Electric Fields to Raise Body By W. E. Curtis and S. F. Evans. Proc. Univ. Durham Philos. Soc., vol. ix., Part 2, p. 61.
Temperature.
PUBLIC HEALTH Preventive Treatment of Adolescents in London
INFECTIOUS DISEASE
A YEAR ago Mr. Somerville Hastings and Miss E. Rickards, F.R.C.S., brought before the London county council the desirability of providing preventive and curative treatment for young people between the ages of 14 and 16 years. There is, as Sir George Newman pointed out seven years ago in " The Health of the School Child," a breakdown in the medical service when the boy or girl leaves school. The adolescent is no one’s care and the majority are not even covered by welfare schemes although urgently needing continued education in matters of ihealth. The L.C.C. central public health committee s advised that the position in regard to welfare schemes is now worse than it was then. By the Education Act of 1921 young persons above the age of 14 attending secondary and day classes in London are entitled to the benefit of the L.C.C. school medical service, but there is to-day nothing of the kind in connexion with the voluntary day continuation classes or the evening institutes. On Tuesday last the L.C.C. endorsed the recommendation of its public health committee that for ’an experimental year arrangements should be made for the inspection and treatment of students attending all the day continuation classes and three of the evening institutes. Inspection is
IN ENGLAND AND WALES DURING THE WEEK ENDED
to take
between three and six months after admission. The school medical records of the children are to be available, the students are to be informed that inspection is voluntary, and parents invited to attend. It is believed that 75 per cent. of the scholars will agree, making about 4000 in all to examine. Little extra cost would, it is said, be incurred on account of the daytime treatment, since most of the Ecommittees undertaking this work are now paid on a block-grant basis.
place
27th, 1934 following cases of infectious - Voc
The number of cases in the Infectious Hospitals of the London County Council on Jan. 30th-31st was as follows : Small-pox, 24 (last week 21) ; scarlet fever, 2215 ; diphtheria, 2071 ; enteric fever, 7 ; measles, 1237 ; whooping-cough, 274 ; puerperal fever, 28 mothers (plus 9 babies); encephalitis lethargica, 260 ; poliomyelitis, 5 ;"other diseases," 193. At St. Margaret’s Hospital there were 19 babies (plus 8 mothers) with ophthalmia neonatorum.
Deaths.-In 118 great towns, including London, there was no death from small-pox, 1 (0) from enteric fever, 59 (21) from measles, 15 (4) from scarlet fever, 24 (8) from whooping-cough, 60 (8) from dysentery, 37 (9) from diarrhoea and enteritis under two years, and 67 (20) from influenza. The figures in parentheses are those for London itself. The deaths from influenza during the past few weeks (working backwards) have been as follows : 67, 87, 100, 109, 83, 97, 95, 70, 59. The 363 deaths during the first four weeks of the year
compare with 5230 deaths for the corresponding weeks of 1933. Nine deaths were this week attributed to influenza at Birmingham, 5 at Glasgow, 3 each at Walthamstow, Oldham, and Stoke-on-Trent; no more than two in any other great town. Seven fatal cases of measles occurred at Liverpool, 6 each at Leeds and Manchester. Manchester reported 3 deaths from scarlet fever. Of the fatal cases of diphtheria 8 occurred at Liverpool, 5 at Huddersfield, 4 each at East Ham, Manchester, and Birmingham.
The number of stillbirths notified during the week 274 (corresponding to a rate of 44 per 1000 total births), including 38 in London.
was