FROM April 1946 to April 1947. the patients with diphtheria treated in the Children's Hospital of the National University numbered 551.
In the winter of 1945, an increase in the incidence of diphtheria was already apparent in Athens and its suburbs, since in that year the patients treated in the Children's Hospital of the National University exceeded 350. We do not intend to deal with the epidemiology of the disease or with the conditions under which it may develop or can be checked, but the increase of patients noted in 1945-1946 indicated that the occurrence of an epidemic of diphtheria was very likely.
A. DIPHTHERIA IN GREECE, 1854-1934
Indeed, when comparing the admission of patients to the hospital for 1922 and the following years, which has now been statistically recorded, we noticed a progressive increase of