BRITISH JOURNAL OF VENEREAL DISEASES

ness. Smears were of very secondary importance in
comparison with cultures. He considered that cultures
should be taken regularly. He could not agree with
what Dr. Nabarro said as to the value of the com-
plement-fixation test in children. He had seen a
number of cases in which it had been negative after
treatment, and when the treatment was stopped the
complement-fixation relapsed accordingly and in agree-
ment with the cultural tests of material from the vagina.
He regarded the complement-fixation and cultural tests
as all-important.

Dr. Nabarro had raised the question of the use of
cestrin. When that gentleman started the cestrin treat-
ment he kindly told the speaker about it, and he followed
suit, hoping for cures without relapse in a short space of
time. Various doses were tried on a dozen children,
and after injecting big doses it was amazing to see the
engorgement of the breasts, and a ward of children who
were masturbating practically all day long. But these
effects ceased as soon as the cestrin was discontinued.
With the reduction of dose to 50 units injected daily, the
experience agreed with that which Dr. Nabarro had
related. As long as cestrin was being given the tests
remained negative. The majority of the cases, however,
relapsed pathologically, but not symptomatically, as
soon as the cestrin was stopped. It was a most disappoint-
ing experience.

NOTE ON THE CHILDREN'S MEDICAL HOME
THE Home is a very modest Home originating out of

the difficulties of the Federation of Children's Workers
as to where to place girls of school age who were infectious
yet not cot cases. These children were a danger in their
own homes, it was practically impossible for their mothers
to take them to clinics for daily treatment, and being
debarred from school suffered enforced idleness.
The Chairman of the Federation of Children's Rescue

Committees, Mrs. Burge, wife of the late Bishop of
Southwark, decided to open a Medical Home, though the
Federation as a Federation refused to take the risk.
The Home therefore from the first has had its own
governing body.

It is a Church of England Home, but takes in members
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FOURTEENTH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

of all creeds. Many of the children are assault cases and
need healing in body, mind and spirit.
We aim at treating the whole child-at giving them a

normal child life in a Christian atmosphere.
Strict discipline has always to be maintained, but we

want them to forget fear.
Besides our excellent medical staff we have one asset

of immense value, a real " Nannie," and are able to keep
an individual touch on every child, and give help
physically, mentally and morally. The school, too, is a
very distinctive feature of the Home.
From the beginning Mr. Davies Colley, of Guy's, has

been Treasurer and mainstay, and the L.C.C. has been
most kind.

C. E. BUNYON,
Chairman.

AN IMPRESSION OF THE CHILDREN'S MEDICAL
HOME, WADDON

THE medical practitioner faced with the care of vulvo-
vaginitis in little girls may well feel all the social emotions
purged by pity and terror-pity for the innocent victim
and terror for its possible consequences to other small
innocents. The physical injury carries with it a psycho-
logical wound, all the deeper for the very impressionable
age at which it has been inflicted, and the prolonged local
treatment has unavoidably further special physiological
and psychological dangers, to be counteracted only by
humane assiduous care demanding the highest skill and
the happiest moral surroundings.
Few homes among hospital patients can provide this;

and too often the best meaning institutional surroundings
and discipline bleakly annul in the realm of the spirit the
most skilful and unremitting individual care. It is
therefore a welcome surprise to find in an institution the
obvious and unmistakable proofs-in its children-of
affectionate personal care inextricably interwoven with
the happiest moral surroundings.
The Children's Medical Home at Waddon is an old-

fashioned country villa in its own wide gardens. Its
furnishing is simple, it is well lighted and home-like; and
clean without the pervading odour of newly scrubbed
boards, Its children are plainly healthy, vigorous and

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