The Bronx 580 East 169th St...... Brooklyn 330 Throop Ave. 1249 Herkimer St...... 124 Lawrence St..... Richmond 689 Bay St., Stapleton.... Manhattan. Nose and throat clinic, including operative treatment. Treatment of contagious eye disease. Refraction eye work. Dental work. Nose and throat clinic, including operative treatment. Treatment of contagious eye disease. Refraction eye work. Dental work. Nose and throat clinic, including operative treatment. Contagious eye disease treatment. Refraction eye work. Dental work. Nose and throat clinic, including operative treatment. Contagious eye disease treatment. Refraction eye work. Dental work. .Dental work only. DIAGNOSTIC CLINICS FOR VENEREAL DISEASES. Centre and Walker Streets. Week days, 9 to 12 a. m. 307 West 33d Street. Wednesdays, 8 to 9 p. m. Brooklyn. 29 Third Avenue. Week days, 9 to 12 a. m. Mondays and Fridays, 8 to 9 p. m. ANTI-RABIC CLINIC Manhattan-Center and Walker Streets. Telephone 6280 Franklin. Week days, 1 to 4 p. m. Brooklyn-29 Third Avenue. Telephone 6719 Main. Week days, 10 a. m. to 1 p. m. Sunday and holidays, 10 a. m. to 12 m. The Bronx-Third Avenue and St. Paul's Place. Telephone 1975 Tremont. Daily, OCCUPATIONAL CLINICS. Manhattan-49 Lafayette Street. Week days, 9 a. m. to noon. Telephone. BRANCH OFFICES AND TUBERCULOSIS CLINICS. Manhattan. Chelsea, 307 West 33d Street. Telephone 3471 Greeley. Stuyvesant, 111 East 10th Street. Telephone 2859 Orchard. Harlem Italian, 420 East 116th Street. Telephone 2375 Harlem. Corlears, 331 Broome Street. Telephone 3859 Orchard. Riverside, 481 West 145th Street. Telephone. Day Camp, Ferryboat "Middletown," foot E. 91st St. Telephone 2957 Lenox. The Bronx. Tremont, St. Pauls Place and Third Avenue. Telephone 1975 Tremont. Mott Haven, 493 East 139th Street. Telephone 5702 Melrose. Brooklyn. Prospect, Fleet and Willoughby Streets. Telephone 4720 Main. Brownsville, 64 Pennsylvania Avenue. Telephone 2732 E. N. Y. Eastern District, 306 S. 5th St., Williamsburg. Telephone 886 Williamsburg. Parkville, 974 West Street. Telephone 1866 Bath Beach. Day Camp, Ferryboat "Rutherford," foot of Fulton St. Telephone 1530 Main. Queens. Jamaica, 10 Union Avenue, Jamaica. Telephone 1386 Jamaica. Richmond. Richmond, Bay and Elizabeth Streets, Stapleton. Telephone 1558 Tompkins. OTISVILLE, ORANGE COUNTY, N. Y. (via Erie Railroad from Jersey City). TUBERCULOSIS HOSPITAL ADMISSION BUREAU. 426 First Avenue. Telephone 8667 Madison Square. Hours 9 a. m. to 5 p. m. The O'Connell Press, 176 Park Row, N. Y. 604-a-'15-13,500 Public health is purchasable. Within natural limitations SYPHILIS AS A PUBLIC HEALTH MENACE PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH NEW YORK, N. Y. 149 CENTRE STREET OF THE Department of Health of the City of New York All communications relating to the publications of the Department of Health should be addressed to the Commissioner of Health, 149 Centre St., N. Y. Entered as second class matter May 7, 1913, at the post office at New York, N. Y.. under the Act of August 24, 1912. Exact data as to the prevalence of this disease in New York City are far from being available since it was only recently that physicians were even requested to report their cases, and very few directly complied. However, the assistance in diagnosis offered by the Department's Serological Laboratory proved such a strong inducement, that, since July, 1912, there has been a steady increase in the number of cases reported by physicians through specimens subImitted for the Wassermann test. This the following table shows: Note: A few "second positive" specimens are included in above. Out of a total of nearly 8,000 practicing physicians in the Greater City, 3,148 have called upon the Serological Laboratory to make the Wassermann test in one or more instances. In an attempt to gain some idea of the number of syphilitics in the City, the Department, in January, 1913, sent a circular to all physicians, asking for a statement of the number of cases of this disease which had been under their care during the previous year and replies were received from 1,500 of them recording a total of 13,388 cases. It is certain that this figure gives no reliable information concerning the prevalence of the disease in this City; for, even if the proportion of cases were assumed to be the same among the eight thousand physicians, an assumption by no means warranted, the total indicated number of cases of syphilis would still be manifestly far below the probable actual number in the City. Thanks to the Wassermann reaction, we now have a tolerably accurate guide to an estimation of the prevalence of syphilis in the community. On the one hand, there are available figures showing the proportion of positive Wassermann reactions obtained in the routine examination of groups of apparently healthy individuals; such examinations, for example, as have been conducted by the Department of Health of this City in various institutions and until recently, also of individuals applying at the Bureau of Licenses for permits to peddle from pushcarts. On the other hand, we have figures showing the proportion of positive Wassermann reactions obtained in the routine examination of patients admitted to hospitals. A moment's consideration will show that calculations based upon each of these figures will not yield precisely similar results, for while the first group consists of apparently healthy persons, the hospital cases undoubtedly include a large number of individuals who are in the hospital directly or indirectly as the result of syphilitic infection. Among these may be mentioned cases of cardiovascular diseases, cases of disease of the nervous system of syphilitic origin and those suffering from late syphilis of the various organs, liver, kidneys, etc. So far as the result of routine Wassermann tests in the case of hospital inmates is concerned, some work done in the pathological department of the Bellevue Hospital within the past few months and as yet unpublished, embracing some 15,000 tests, shows that from twenty-two to twenty-five per cent. of the patients entering that hospital yield positive Wassermann reactions. Various other hospital authorities have reported that the general run of inmates give positive Wassermann reactions to the extent of fifteen to thirty per cent. of all, and so it is evident that the average rate among such patients is very near that obtained in Bellevue. Last year the total hospital population of New York City, excluding maternity cases, contagious disease admissions, consumptives and cancer cases, was 206,640. The result of the routine Wassermann tests made by the Department of Health in various institutions and on the individuals applying for pushcart peddlers' licenses, are shown in the following table: Wassermann Tests Made At Various Penal Institutions and on Applicants for License to Peddle from Pushcarts. It is interesting to note that the group in the above table showing the lowest proportion of syphilitic infection, comprising the pushcart peddlers, the men confined in the Tombs Prison, and the boys in the Hart's Island Reformatory, yields positive findings to the extent of seven to eleven per cent. The high |