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The Head Teachers have kindly collected the figures for about
twelve months of the children excluded on account of being contacts
with whooping cough, in order to find out what proportion really do
contract the disease. They are as follows:—
Cases excluded for whooping-cough during a period of about twelve
months.
Thus we see that among the contacts excluded for whooping cough
97 per cent, of the boys and 96 per cent, of the girls among the children
attending the school for elder children did not contract the disease,
although they had, not had it before, and although they were in more
prolonged contact than they would have been if they were attending
school.
Under these circumstances, your medical officers felt justified in
recommending that all contacts with whooping cough might be allowed
to attend the departments for boys and girls whether they had had the
disease before or not.
Inheritance of Predisposition towards
Scarlet Fever.
Scarlet fever is caused by contact with a previous case of scarlet
fever, but all do not contract the disease who are exposed to it. In
order to ascertain whether the fact that the mother had had scarlet
fever rendered her child more liable to acquire it, enquiries were made of
the parents who attended medical inspection whether they themselves had
had scarlet fever or not, and thus the incidence of scarlet fever in the
mother and children could be compared. Particulars were obtained in
respect of 968 mothers and children, and the results were as follows,
boys and girls being given separately. The ages of the children were from
ten to fourteen years.