DIPHTHERIA

Abstract

With the aim of bringing the diphtheria situation in American cities to general attention, and in the hope that methods found available for reducing diphtheria in one locality may be made familiar and be utilized in others,The Journal of the American Medical Associationhas undertaken an annual general survey of diphtheria mortality in American cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants, similar to the typhoid surveys published for several years past.1 The tables include sixty-eight cities of over 100,000 population and are arranged in geographical groups. They show clearly the decline in diphtheria mortality with the introduction of the use of diphtheria antitoxin in 1894 to 1895. However, the rates since that time have not continued to fall in some sections as it seems they should. The composite table shows the effect of the use of antitoxin. In the period since 1910, the decline in the diphtheria rate for