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67
In all cases where closure was resorted to, disinfection was
carried out, followed by the cleansing of the classrooms
concerned.
Special investigations were also carried out in connection with
other Schools, which were not, however, officially closed, but
simply disinfected and cleansed.
The Lambeth experience during 1904 (as in previous years)
goes to prove that Measles is specially fatal amongst children
living under insanitary conditions, and spreads rapidly through
the medium of schools, more especially Infants' Departments.
School-closure, or even class-closure, in connection with a
rising epidemic is, therefore, of the greatest value in stamping
it out, though the value of such closure is not so great when
the epidemic is already disseminated throughout a school.
Where such epidemic is a declining one school closure is of
little use.
Whooping Cough.
Whooping Cough is also a serious disease, especially to young
children. Of the 109 deaths registered in Lambeth Borough
during 1904 from this disease, 105 (i.e., 96.3 per cent.) occurred
in children under 5 years of age, and 45 of the deaths (i.e., 41.3 per
cent.) occurred amongst infants under 1 year of age. It is,
therefore, a disease of childhood, and its prevention ought to be
systematically attempted, chiefly in the way of disinfection of
Whooping Cough-infected houses, exclusion from school of
children (both infected and from infected houses), and the
educating of parents up to the dangerous nature of the disease
and the importance of careful nursing of the patients when
suffering from this complaint. Unfortunately, Whooping Cough,
like Measles, is, at present, regarded as a harmless complaint
of childhood, and the ignorance displayed, and the apathy shown,
in regard to these diseases are well known to all who visit amongst
the poorer classes.