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33
How Disease is Spread.—Scarlet Fever is often spread
in schools, sometimes owing to the unwitting admittance
of children who have passed through an unrecognized
attack, followed by an almost imperceptible desquamation
("peeling") of the skin. In other cases, children apparently well
in health, but still peeling, are sent to school, either in
ignorance or for convenience. One marked case of this kind
came to light at Buckingham Terrace Board School. In the
tenth report (October 13th, page 115), I reported the absence
of 17 children ill with scarlet fever, other 58 children living at
the infected houses being excluded from the school. Just at
this time a child who had been in attendance for nine days
was found to be peeling. Two other children in the family
had been previously removed to hospital. This child's case
had not been notified, and only came to light upon an examination
of her hands by the head teacher, resulting from a
communication received from a mother excusing her own
girl's non-attendance upon the ground that she didn't want
her to come into contact with the infected child: it was
obvious, therefore, that the parents could not have been in
ignorance of the peeling or of the cause of it. Such an
exposure could hardly fail to lead to the spread of disease,
and the Sanitary Committee rightly decided to take proceedings.
A double offence had been committed, the father
having failed to notify the illness as he should have done, no
doctor having been consulted. The magistrates inflicted the
very moderate fine of five shillings for each offence. The
large class room in which the infected child had sat was
disinfected, and apparently with good effect, having regard to
the diminished number of cases thereafter recorded in connection
with the school.