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110
1897]
houses in which the disease is known to have occurred. They have most
excellent rules laid down for their guidance in the Code of Regulations
of the School Board, and it is a great pity that they do not rigorously
follow them. If they did such a case as came under notice recently
would not have occurred. Two children, who were competing for
medals, for which they seem to have had a very good chance, lived in
a house in which a case of diphtheria had been treated for a week before
its true character had been diagnosed. The Medical Attendant then
notified it and at once information was sent to the School. Now,
according to the Code, children living in the house should have been
excluded for at least a week after the disinfection of the premises had
been certified by the Medical Officer of Health, but the teacher, instead
of following this wise precaution, had the children to the School, so that
they might not lose their rewards. It is true that they were placed in
a class-room by themselves, but it is also a fact that the class-room
was used by others when they had gone. Now if these children
had at this time been going through the incubation period of the
disease, it was not impossible that they might have infected the air of
the room, and so been the means of conveying the disease to other
children. In any case it was very wrong that they should have been
received into the School before the teacher had been satisfied that the
regulations, which she ought to have obeyed, had been complied with.
Both teacher and parents, the former especially, are deserving of severe
censure for their conduct. The prizes may have been very much
desired for these children, who were in every way estimable, but they
would have been very dearly earned if they had been obtained at the
cost of an outbreak of diphtheria in the School, particularly as this
disease is so fatal to those whom it attacks.
FATALITY FROM INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
Out of 2,907 cases of Infectious Disease notified to the Medical
Officer of Health, 1,620 were treated in hospitals, and 1,287 in their
own homes. Of the hospital cases 7.8 per cent. died and of those
treated at home 10.2 per cent., the total fatality being 8.8 per cent.
Full particulars of the fatality from the various diseases are given
in the two following Tables.