[Report 1930] / Medical Officer of Health, Leeds City.

  • Leeds (England). City Council.
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1930] / Medical Officer of Health, Leeds City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    193/300 (page 177)
    There is always a good attendance at the sessions when both massage and sunlight treatment are given. On those occasions the only drawback is that space becomes very cramped, which is easily understood with numbers approaching ioo, in a small building with small rooms. Massage and remedial exercises, which are so very necessary in Leeds, are often given under very difficult condi¬ tions. Artificial Sunlight Clinics.—The children sent for treatment were suffering principally from rickets, general debility, malnutrition, debility following some infectious disease, catarrh, bronchitis, nervousness, and a few cases of rheumatism and asthma, and also for preventative reasons. Although the severe rickets, resulting in marked deformities, is less prevalent in Leeds than formerly, it is not by any means absent, and even now a large part of the infant population is mildly rachitic. The number of children seen at the Welcomes with rickets during 1930 was 1,084. Rickets is a disease, the ill effects of which in its severe form can hardly be over-emphasized. Not only are the bony deformities which when well advanced can never be rectified, a serious dis¬ figuration, which the child must carry throughout his life, but the curved spine and narrow chest predispose to diseases of the respira¬ tory system, whilst the deformed pelvis greatly increases the danger and difficulty of childbirth for women. Ultra-violet irradiation is a practical method of prevention on a large scale, and ultra-violet irradiation at infant welfare centres, seems to be a necessary public health measure. Central.—The lamps at the Central Clinic were used to great advantage during the year. A total of 401 children and two mothers were treated at the clinic during the year. An average of 12 per session, or a total of 535 examinations were made by the doctor. The attendances during the year of all cases were as follows :—mothers 52, babies under one year 496, children between one and five years 5,915, a total of 6,463. Holbeck.—Both the sunlight lamp and X-ray apparatus were in constant use throughout the year.