[Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Blackburn County Borough.

  • Blackburn (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1952
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Blackburn County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/142 (page 10)
    Tins, my 25th ANNUAL REPORT, awakens many memories. The i'ii'st is the coiii'tesy of all members, past and ])resent, of the Health Committee (])articularly so that of the five C'hairmen whom 1 have served), and of the Cldef Offieials, especially the Town Clerk who, successively as Senior Solicitor, Dc'jndy, and in his present post, has been a good colleague sijice the day of my apjJointmeiit and for many subsequent years my close friend. As Blackbui’n had been well-served by a succession of first-rate Medical Officers, T inherited in May, 1928, a well-organised Hej^artment. The estab- lishment was 90. ACCOMMODATION at VICTORIA STREET, then ample for our needs, is now more than overstrained due to new duties imposed by statute, the j)rovision of such additional forms of treatment as orthojjtics and diphtheria jn’e^Tiition, and extensions to the consultant, dental and jjhysiotherapeutic services operating within the Health Department. For every one clinic held in 1928 there are now three and, largely owing to the provision of day nurseries, ambulance service, domiciliary nursing, domestic helps, etc., the staff of the DejJartment has almost quadrupled in the last 25 years. Since 1928 over thirty Assistant or DejDuty Medical Officers, many of whom now occujDy important public health posts (and still keep in touch with what they term their “ old parish ”), have passed through the Department. To all my Departmental associates, past and present, medical and non-medical, 1 tender thanks for personal and official loyalty. Twenty-five years have witnessed so many changes that only few can be mentioned. The VIRTUAL DISAPPEARANCE OF DIPHTHERIA, in 1928 a rife and deadly disease springs vividly to mind. 1 recall the then urgent and frequent admissions to I’ark Lee Hospital at all hours (particularly so during the 1928 1929 winter) of cases “ on the go ” (as we then said) for days without medical treatment. Some were beyond hope, others gravely ill and many ireeded emergency tracheotomy, then the accepted task of Health Department medicals attached to the hos])ital who had learned the “ job ” under exi)er- ienced fever clinicians in the days when diphtheria was an everyday evil with no specific means of prevention. IMMUNISATION, started in 1929 (since when a])jn'oximately .‘18,000 children have been treated), has changed the picture. The disease is now rare indeed.