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Report of the Medical Officer (Education).
121
notifications were received from the other schools during this period. In July only one child was a
sufferer, a girl (in classroom F of the girls' department not hitherto affected), but eleven contacts were
excluded, of whom two were notified as sufferers after the holidays. After the holidays numerous
cases continued both here and in adjoining schools, the district was generally infected, but there was no
evidence of any school distribution in the way of successive cases occurring within a day or two in the
same class. Thirty cases were notified from the school during September, October, and November.
Of these 14 were cases excluded as suspicious with sore throats, but without other evidences of illness.
The only instance raising a question of school influence and which led to detailed study of the
outbreak was the absence from classroom D in the girls' department, of I. B., on September 18th, M. G.,
on September 19th, and C. L., on the 20th. But I. B. had been excluded in June on account of
disease in the house. The illness there was that of a boy in the infants' school. They both remained
out of school until the end of the summer holiday. The infant boy had a recurrence of the disease,
and I. B. was also affected. In the case of C. L., a similar story was noted, as a baby was ill with
scarlatina and the children had been excluded. M. G., who was absent the day before C. L.'s absence
commenced, was a new case, the origin of which was not traced, but she lived in a house abutting
on two others where cases of the disease had occurred, and which were again invaded in November,
and house infection was as likely, if indeed not more probable, than school infection.
The four cases which occurred in the boys' department were in Classes A, C, D, and E,
respectively, and there was no suggestion of school infection. In the infants' department two cases
occurred in the Classroom H in May, but they were separated by over a week interval, and both
came from infected districts. In September seven cases (one sore throat) appeared separated in
five classrooms. In October again there were four cases separated in four classes, but seven cases of
Figure 5.—District distribution of scarlatina about Winchester-street in 1911.
suspicious throat were also excluded, in one case exclusion had taken place for disease in the house the
previous May, and two others were from one house. All cases of suspicious throats were treated
as cases of disease, but three out of every four of the children rapidly recovered and no other case
occurred in the house. So that it is doubtful whether they were scarlatinal, although at the time
no other course was practically justifiable and they stand in our records as suspected scarlatina.
The other schools in the district were also invaded by scarlatina, but their cases of disease were
almost confined to residents this area, as detailed later. ,
12532 Q