102 PASTEUR AND AFTER PASTEUR 



method of fighting the disease. Meanwhile, let us 

 be glad that whole legions of children have been 

 saved from death. Nor is it only the saving of 

 lives that we may be thankful for, it is also the 

 prevention of misery : 



" Instead of the spectacle of a number of patients 

 in great distress, with swollen necks and stuffed-up 

 noses, fretful and crying, such cases are now quite 

 the exception, and, in the few one does come 

 across, the condition lasts for a comparatively short 

 time. ... It was quite unusual (before 1895) for 

 a nurse to care to stay very long in charge of one 

 of the diphtheria wards, because she found the 

 work so depressing. But nowadays the diphtheria 

 wards are perhaps the most popular in the hospital, 

 a fact which is mainly owing to the change in the 

 general aspect of the patients and the greatly 

 reduced mortality."* 



Among the experiences of the entire world, let 

 us take one set of facts, in this country, which 

 anybody can verify for himself or herself. The 

 Hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board 

 receive three out of every four cases of diphtheria 

 over an area of 121 square miles containing five 

 millions of lives : thousands of cases every year : 

 what these Hospitals do not know about diphtheria- 

 cases is not worth knowing. They began the 



* From a clinical lecture by Dr. Foord Caiger, Medical 

 Superintendent of the South- Western Hospital. See the 

 ClinicalJournal, May 23, 1906. 



