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to have seen the case fought out in the High Court, so as to
get a governing decision for future use.
Now that a new Education Authority has been established
for London, it is to be hoped that they will take into
consideration the regulations governing the attendance of
children who are competing for the various prizes or scholarships.
It has often happened that children have been allowed
to go to school suffering, albeit unknowingly on the part of the
parents, from some infectious disease. I have often been
assured by the mothers that they would have kept such children
at home, only by doing so the chance of gaining some award
would have been lost. Owing also to the requirements of the
education authorities I believe children have gone back to
school with a certificate of disinfection, but—and this applies
especially to diphtheria—without a certificate stating that
the child itself is free from any infection. In previous
reports I have directed the attention of the Council to the fact
that bacilli may exist in the throat of a child who is free from
all clinical evidence of the disease, and I hope that under the
new regime, in the case of diphtheria, the procuring of a
certificate by the parent that the child's throat is bacteriologically
free from this disease will be necessary before the
teacher can permit him or her to return. There can be no
excuse for the neglect of this precaution, for practically all
boroughs in London have followed your lead and made
arrangements for the bacteriological examination of pathological
material free of any charge.
Tables VI. and VII. show the work of your Inspectors
arranged in tabular form and classified according to the nature
of the work and to the name of the Inspector.
The increase of 500 in the number of house-to-house
inspections is accounted for by there being little time occupied
on smallpox visitations in the past year, the number of visits
to contacts having dropped from 13,443 to 804.
During the year 5,830 intimations were served, followed
by 1,414 statutory notices. Furthermore, in the case of 3,333
premises, it was found necessary to cause summonses to be
served to enforce work to be done.
Factory and Workshop Act.
The Factory and Workshop Act, which came into
force two years ago, has been carried out as set forth in the