[Report 1938] / Medical Officer of Health, Huddersfield County Borough.

  • Huddersfield (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1938
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1938] / Medical Officer of Health, Huddersfield County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    GENERAL PROVISION OF HEALTH SERVICES IN THE AREA. Laboratory Facilities. The Laboratory situated at the centra] Health Department provides a comprehensive service for dealing with the majority of investigations required in Public Health work. Tests carried out elsewhere, for which the Health Committee accepts financial responsi¬ bility, are as follows :— (1) Examinations for the presence of tubercle bacilli in milk. These are based upon animal inoculations for which a special licence is necessary, and are carried out at the Hud lersfieid Royal Infirmary. The total number carried out during the past year was 185, of which 11 were positive, giving a percentage of 5.9. (2) Wassermann tests in connection with Venereal Diseases work, for which also an animal licence is necessary. Such tests can be carried out most economically when large numbers of specimens are being dealt with, and so are best dealt with at centres which collect specimens from wide areas. For this reason, tests of this nature for the Huddersfield area are carried out at the Public Health Laboratory, Manchester. The number of specimens examined last year was 1,593, being an increase of 286 compared with the previous year. THE PUBLIC HEALTH LABORATORY. Msdisal Officer : Arthur F. Turner. M.B., Ch.B., D.P.H. During 1938 the scope of the Public Health Laboratory remained the same, but the volume of work increased considerably. As an example, 30 water analyses were carried out compared with 5 in the previous year. This was due to the fact that a number of doubtful water supplies were taken into the Borough when the boundary was extended. Some of these waters were found unsuitable, and pure supplies have since been substituted. The increase in blood agglutination for diagnosis of Enteric infection was due to the fact that all labourers employed on Borough water works are now examined with a view to excluding Typhoid carriers. This is a very necessary precaution. The bio-chemical examinations also showed a large increase, 122 specimens being dealt with. (a) Bacteriological Work. (1) Diphtheria. During 1938, 2,577 swabs were examined for C. Diphtherise and 574 positive results were obtained. As in recent years the swabs were cultured on Loeffler’s blood serum and also on a medium con¬ taining tellurite. The results compared with the previous year are :— Total Positives 2,443 432 2,577 574 1937 1938