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The number 1,474 is 48 more than last year, shswing that my efforts to
carry on the work of inspection of specially-referred scholars at the School
Medical Office in the Town Hall were quite successful.
During the summer holidays all the public elementary schools were disinfected,
and also the Latymer Secondary School; the same was done during
the Christmas vacation of 1914.
Exclusion of Contacts. The rules adopted for the exclusion of
contracts are as follows. All children living in a house where there is a case of
scarlet fever or diphtheria are excluded from school until the Medical Officer of
Health certifies that they may attend. The same rule applies to contacts (i.e.
children living in the same house) of measles, whooping cough, chickenpox, and
mumps, in the case of children attending the Infants' Schools. In the case of
children attending the schools for older children, however, the child is not excluded,
if he or she has already had the disease in question sometime since. The
danger is not altogether that he may in some way carry the disease about him
and spread it, but that he may attend school while suffering from measles or
such like in the incipient stage, and so spread it ; if he had already had the
disease, this danger would be said to be much less.
As stated in our report for 1912 all contacts with whooping cough are
allowed to attend the departments for boys and girls, whether they had had the
disease or not.
Teachers' Notifications. Insufficient knowledge of the existence of
the infectious diseases leads to their uncontrolled spread and to regrettable
effects on the average attendance, which I wish to see as high as possibleconsistent
with the health of the scholars and the younger relations at home.
I am glad to be able to report again that our further experience of the system of
notification advised by the Medical Officers in December, 1999, has been very
satisfactory. The teachers and attendance officers, generally speaking, have
spared no pains to do the work thoroughly, and therefore well.
Exclusion Notices.—In connection with the notifiable infectious
diseases, viz., diphtheria, scarlet and enteric fevers, 1,844 notices were issued
excluding contacts from attendance for definite periods. Notices were issued
in 1913-12-11 to the number of 1,500, 621 and 396, respectively. These notices
are now made out for the individual children, patients and contacts, as they
are for non-notifiable diseases, and not for infected houses.
On account of the non-notifiable infectious diseases, notices excluding 2,874
children as patients or contacts were issued by me, after enquiries had been as
to the real nature of the illness. The numbers excluded in 1913-12-11 were
1,941, 1,684 and 1,748, respectively.