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whole of the Infants' Department of Battersea Park Road School
were closed, by arrangement with the Education Department
of the London County Council, for periods of two weeks, one
week, and two weeks respectively, and the class-rooms,
lavatories, &c., were disinfected by the Borough Council.
Several class-rooms, &c., were also disinfected in St. Joseph's
School.
Twenty-four cases of scarlet fever occurred at periods
varying from one to thirty-one days after the return to the same
house of a patient discharged from hospital after an attack of
scarlet fever. In 23 of these cases no other source of infection
could be discovered, and it is probable that, in some of them
at all events, the infection was derived from the discharged
patient.
Since the year 1903 it has been the practice of the
Metropolitan Asylums Board to furnish the London Medical
Officers of Health with returns giving the dates on which it is
proposed to discharge from hospital recovered cases of scarlet
fever and diphtheria, and it is now one of Miss Dawson's duties
to visit the homes to which recovered patients are to return,
and to advise the mothers to take certain precautions; for
instance, not to allow the child to sleep with other children soon
after his return. She also ascertains to what school it is
proposed to send the patient, and a letter is then addressed to
the Head Teacher requesting that the child be excluded from
school for a fortnight after his return home. This procedure
appears to have had a beneficial effect.
The importance of preventing the occurrence of return cases
is appreciated by the Metropolitan Asylums Board, who in 1901
appointed Dr. Cameron to investigate and report upon the
question. In 1905 Dr. Cameron's report was printed and
circulated to the London Sanitary Authorities. As a result of
the report the Board have already modified the arrangements
made for discharging patients from hospital, and it is to be
hoped that these cases may become much fewer in the future.
In Battersea the figures relating to return cases in 1905 compare
favourably with those in previous years, showing, one may hope,