[Report 1927] / Monmouthshire County Council.

  • Monmouthshire County Council
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1927] / Monmouthshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    73/104 (page 69)
    For the past four yeai^s the numhers of new cases have varied but little, there being only a difference of 32i between the highest figaire, 281, in 1926, and the lowest, 251 in 1926. The figures for gonorrhoea are practically stationary —130, 129, and 131 in the last three years. The totals from year to year appear to be reaching a stationary level, and a review of the figure for the ten years during which the clinic has been in existence shows a rapid rise in numbers to a peak year (1920) when 428 new cases were seen; a fall, considerable in the next year which may have been accentuated by the industrial trouble in the County; followed by a rise, smaller than the fall to figures that have become almost stationary. The number of pa,tients discharged cured shows little change. Of the 170 who are shown as ceasing to attend before completing treatment it would not be fair to consider these as being in an acutely infections condition. It must be remembered that a patient who has syphilis must, to pass the tests for cure as laid down by the Ministry of Health, attend for surveillance at intervals of from one to three months for a perioid of at least two years after he has had the recO'gnised treatment. A Pecent survey (of the dase cards shows that many do not keep this Pp for more than a few months. They would, judging from the results of such tests that have already been done, probably be quite free at the end of the period had they been seenj again. In gonorrhoea the tests are such that a long period of, surveillance is not necessary and while some of those who cease to attend are probably non-infectious, the probability of their being so is less than in the case of syphilitic patients. The industrial depression has probably something to do with the fall in attendances, which is shown both in the cases of gonorrhoea and syphilis, but improvements in the results of treatment requiring less attendances per case is also, I think, a factor.” B.—Dr. Mary K. M. Gordon. “ The work of the clinic was conducted on much the same lines as in the previous year. There is a slight decrease in the total number of persons attending for the first time, due to a falling-off in the number of new cases suffering from Syphilis. Of the new adult cases of Syphilis attending for the first time, the majority showed symptoms compatible with the later stages of the disease—^many were the mothers of children sent to the clinic with symptoms of congenital Syphilis These mothers seemed healthy and presented no apparent signs of the disease, but a blood examination showed that treatment for Syphilis was necessary. Syphilis, therefore, appears to be on the decline—certainly the number of new infections is decreasing.