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Sub-district of Putney and Roehampton.
59
well as the water and milk supply. Nothing was discovered in
these directions to account for the epidemic. The condition of the
school premises was also enquired into and several defects
connected with the sanitary arrangements were discovered and
have been pointed out to the school managers. In the first place,
there is no shelter or covered area where the children can play in
wet weather. Their playground is practically the cloak-room and
passages round about the water-closets. These water-closets are
of an obsolete type. They are not self-cleansing, and the receivers
were foul when I inspected them. Apart from the condition of
the closets themselves, their position in the school is very bad
and insanitary. Instead of being outside the school altogether,
they are really situated inside in close proximity to the cloak-room,
where, as I have stated, the children are in the habit of spending
their intervals in wet weather. The number of water-closets is
also deficient.
When diphtheria was imported into this school we had all the
conditions present for a rapid spread of the disease. To my mind
the cases were the result of personal infection from one child to
another. The disease broke out during cold wet weather, when
naturally the children were prevented from playing in the open.
The school atmosphere must have got vitiated from the want
of sufficient ventilation and from the emanations arising from the
foul water-closets.
The steps I have taken to prevent the spread of the disease
were:—
1st. Removal of cases to hospital where possible, or
isolation at their own homes.
2nd. Closure of schools for a period of four weeks.
3rd. Disinfection and cleansing of school premises.
These efforts I am happy to say have doubtless very materially
helped to stamp out this epidemic, which at one time appeared
very serious.
(Signed) WILLIAM Y. ORR,
Medical Officer of Health for Putney and Roehampton.