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127
lice or their " nits." The result of my enquiries amongst these
families shows that the parents of 129 of the 280 families purchased
some of their children's clothing from second-hand dealers. This
gives a proportion of 46 per cent, of the total, i.e.—46 per cent,
of the children found to be verminous are clothed with one or more
garments obtained from these dealers.
While I regarded the result of these enquiries as extremely
suggestive of a casual connection between second-hand clothing
and the verminous condition of school children, I did not consider
this evidence alone sufficient to prove the connection.
In order to test the above, I found it necessary to pursue the
second line of enquiry, viz.:—
2. To ascertain if possible the proportion of non-verminous
families in the same social circle as the above, whose parents
purchased second-hand clothing for their children. This I was
able to do in certain cases of diphtheria and scarlet fever notified.
These groups were selected for convenience, and also for the purpose
of diverting attention from the real object of the enquiry. I must
remark here that the children so affected with diphtheria and scarlet
fever were all elementary school children and attended the same
schools as the verminous children, but were not verminous children,
They represented a population of children drawn from the same
social class as the verminous children, and differing alone from them
in the circumstances of freedom from vermin and almost complete
absence of wearing second-hand garments. The enquiries covered
the period from 1st April to 22nd June. Of the families in which
cases of scarlet fever had occurred there were 88, but of these the
parents of three only purchased second-hand clothing. This gives
a rate of 3 4 per cent, of the total. Of the families in which cases
of diphtheria occurred, the total of which was 91, there was only
one family purchasing such clothing. This gives a rate of 1.1 per
cent, of the total. If these two classes of families are added together
we get a total of 179 families, four of which clothe their children