The treatment & disinfection of scarlet fever by antiseptic inunction / by J. Brendon Curgenven.

  • Curgenven, J. Brendon (John Brendon), 1831-1903.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The treatment & disinfection of scarlet fever by antiseptic inunction / by J. Brendon Curgenven. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    by Dr. Sunderland. He says in another letter, I have used the Eucalyptus plan in all cases of scarlatina under my care since I saw you, and have had no spread of infection. The rate-payers' money has been saved, and the cases treated at home at the cost of a few shillings. I have endeavoured to obtain interviews with other Medical Officers of Health without success, the sceptical in- credulity of editors and critics, without a trial have set them against the treatment. I have sent my pamphlets to all the Medical Officers of Health of London, and many in the provinces, and have received an acknowledgment only from three. In one district I know that the treatment has been used for more than twelve months, instead of the intention of the Local Board to build a hospital being carried out, and yet I cannot get any information as to the results of the treatment from the Medical Officer of Health. I have entered rather fully into the subject of infectious hospitals, as the same argument would apply to segregating boys in school infirmaries. I have, I think, proved that by this method of antiseptic treatment carried out in the homes of the patients, the symptoms of the disease are mitigated, complications and sequelae prevented, and deaths rarely occur ; and, moreover, infection is arrested in a more perfect manner than by the expensive process at present adopted. What, I would ask, should prevent the Local Government Board from enquiring into the subject, or the Local Authorities from testing my statements ? The Local Government Board and the Asylums Board tell me that they cannot suggest any new method of treatment, and the Medical Officers of Health say it does not fall within their province. It rests, therefore, with individual medical men, and with the medical officers and heads of schools, institutions and large establishments, whose hands are not tied by official red tape or strong conservatism, to adopt this simple and rational method of preventino-