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1896]
58
If this letter of the Local Government Board means the initiation of a
changed order of things then it becomes a matter of necessity that the duties
and responsibilities of the Medical Officers to School Boards should be
clearly defined by the Local Government Board, and that legislation should
be introduced giving them that locus standi in health matters which they do
not at present possess.
The new state of affairs can only lead to friction, and, therefore, should
be regulated by some order defining the lelative duties of the several
officers.
As a commentary on the action of the School Board, who were so
anxious that advice should not be given to their officers, it may be pointed
out that although the Board's private code of regulations for the guidance of
managers, correspondents and teachers contains the subjoined very strong
clause as to affording information to the Medical Officer of Health, yet not
once did information reach me from them, although the teachers up to the
time of the letter from the Board had from time to time afforded me valuable
information, for which I expressed my appreciation in my Report for
the Third Quarter of last year (vide p. 13).
(ii.) “Any child showing symptoms of an infectious disease, or any
child coming from a house where an infectious disease exists, must be sent
home at once, and the Superintendent of Visitors must be immediately
informed of the case, in order that enquiries may at once be made with a
view to proper steps being taken to prevent the children living in the same
house or tenement from attending school. The Medical Officer of Health for
the district must also at the tame time be informed of the child's exclusion, and
furnished with the name and address of the child and the reason of its exclusion on
a form with which the teachers will be supplied by the Head Office” (p. 67). The
italics are those of the Medical Officer of Health.
Now if it be recollected that there were 170 deaths from Measles during
the quarter, and if the fatality were 5 per cent., and it is not supposed it was
higher, then there must have been at least 3,400 cases.
Is it possible that no knowledge of any of these cases came to the
Board School Officials? The query cannot be answered by your Medical
Officer. All he knows is that no information ever reached him, a fact much
to be regretted, for it would have been invaluable in assisting to stay the