REPORT ON THE WORKING OF THE KING INSTITUTE OF PREVENTIVE
MEDICINE, GUINDY, FOR THE OFFICIAL YEAR 1921-22.

LIST OF CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

    The annual report of the King Institute again calls for different treatment.

    Up to the present two annual reports have been called for, one for the
Vaccine section and one for the Microbiological section. Both of these sections
have always been treated as entirely separate entities with separate systems of
accounts, because it has been the custom to charge the actual cost of the manu-
facture of the vaccine lymph to the different local bodies concerned. Government
in their G.0. No. 493, Financial, dated 11th May 1921, has now waived their claim
to the recovery of this charge and the necessity for a hard and fast distinction
between the two sections no longer exists. A single report giving an account of
the activities of the whole Institute has thus been rendered possible for the first
time.

    Although officially divided into two sections, the King Institute in reality
functions in a variety of different ways—

      (1) As a vaccine lymph manufacturing depot for the Madras Presidency.
      (2) As a bacteriological laboratory for the manufacture of bacterial
vaccines.
      (3) As a laboratory for the examination of clinical material for the Madras
hospitals and the medical profession of the Madras Presidency in general.
      (4) As the Presidency Public Health Laboratory.
      (5) As a Research Laboratory for the investigation of problems connected
with medicine and public health.

    These various functions are undertaken in most other provinces by two or more
separate institutions. The Madras policy of concentration under one roof,
however, presents many advantages especially in the direction of economy and
no objection can be taken to it so long as full opportunity for expansion is given
in every direction.

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