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42
of the completion of the work the disease ceased to recur, and the
school, which had the worst health record in Islington, may now lay
claim to the best.
The Yerbury Road Board School, from the sewer air theory point
of view, holds a unique position, for undoubtedly it proves, albeit
negatively, that sewer gas can, and does, convey the germs of Diphtheria
into the interior of our dwellings through defective sanitary
appliances, and that these are consequently a real, and not an imaginary,
danger to the persons living therein, more especially to those who, in
consequence of their youth, are most susceptible to this very terrible
and fatal disease.
The poison of Diphtheria is, unfortunately, one that is not easily
destroyed, and it is therefore essential that houses in which the disease
has appeared should be thoroughly disinfected, but above all that the
walls of the rooms in which the patients have lain should be stripped and
washed with disinfectants, while at the same time the ceilings should be
scraped and limewashed.
In schools the spread of the disease is very much favoured by the
adherence to the walls and ceilings of the exhalation of the scholars,
and it is, therefore, of the utmost importance, when the disease is
prevalent in a district, that the schoolrooms should be systematically
cleansed and disinfected. This should be effected at least once a week,
when in addition to washing the floors and the school furniture with disinfectants,
the class-rooms themselves should be fumigated with
sulphurous acid or chlorine gases. There is no great trouble and very
little expense attached to these precautions and there is, therefore, no
excuse for their neglect, more especially in schools supported by local
rates or public money.
Let it not be forgotten that the mere closure of schools for a short
or a long period its good only in so far that it prevents children, in whose
homes disease exists, or who themselves are suffering from suspicious
sore throats, from mixing with each other; but that it does not destroy
the infective germs which have already found their way into the rooms,
and which are possibly lodged on the walls, ceilings, wood-work or
school furniture.