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146
Daring 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 1913.
Exclusion of Contacts. The rules adopted for the exclusion of
contacts 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 may be said to be much less.
As stated in our last report, after considering figures which the head
teachers had been at some trouble to collect with reference to whooping cough
contacts throughout the year, we 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 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, 1909, has been very
satisfactory. The teachers and attendance officers, generally speaking, have
spared no pains to do the work thoroughly, and therefore well.

Besides the following:—Enfield Council Schools 15; Private Schools 3;
Tottenham Deaf and Dumb School, 1; and 13 children not attending (at the
time) any school.