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of pounds yearly and would continue until public provision for the free treatment of this disease is
made. This is the only way of satisfactorily dealing with it as a school matter. This disease is one
which might easily be disseminated by careless handling, and for that reason minute precautions are
taken by the nurses after handling such cases. On the other hand a single case sometimes remains in
a family without spreading for some unexplained reason, and adults are free from risk of infection.
A case of chronic ringworm has recently been found which had been in a large residential school for
months without any other child being affected, and yet usually in a residential school the chance
admission of one unobserved case means a rapid development of several cases.
FAVUS.
The Favus School opened at Osborne-place in June, 1906, has been sanitarily a great and encouraging
success, mainly owing to the time and care expended on it by the late Dr. Bertram Abrahams.
He set up as his ideal the complete extirpation of the disease in the East End and established by patient
enquiry and testing the success of the school routine which is the most successful purely medical treatment
we are acquuinted with. He lived long enough to see his desire brought well in view by the
inauguration of electrical treatment which will enormously shorten the period of treatment required
for cure. During the year 28 children have left, and 23 have been admitted, 76 remaining on the roll.
The accommodation has been reduced to 55.

Of these 23 admitted, 12 had already been under treatment at the London Hospital and 9 elsewhere,
but only 1 child had materially benefited, and that child has now removed from the district.
It was certified free from fungus before removal. Two had not had any previous treatment. Of the
28 who left, 19 were cured, 1 was over the age limit and six removed from London. One was taken
oft the roll on account of long and serious illness due to rheumatic fever and its sequelae. Of the 76
children on the roll, at the end of the year (31.3.08), 13 came from the Jews' Free School, 8 from Myrdlestreet,
6 from Chicksand-street, 4 each from Baker-street and Commercial-street, and 29 from 16 other
neighbouring schools, whilst 12 had never been in school.

The earlier difficulty of getting reliable information as to the family prevalence of favus has at
last been surmounted by the patient enquiries of the nurse, who now can speak to many of the mothers
in their own language. She has obtained full accounts of 54 families ; in 42 the father was foreign born,
and 47 the mother was foreign born ; in 4 the parents were English born, but some of the grandparents
were Portuguese ; in 41 families more than one of the members were affected. Several of these families
have had all the children attending the favus school cured. In 7 of the cases the disease was attributed
to infection at the ordinary school. In many families one or both parents were stated to have
suffered earlier and recovered, and the history shows a considerable proportion of recoveries about
puberty, this practically is the case in the allied disease of ringworm. It is noteworthy that in 19
cases the children were affected on their arrival from Russia ; in one case all six members of the family
were affected.