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trequent changes than this produce cold currents of air and
draughts.
Upon very good authority it is stated that "The headaches and
other symptoms ascribed to over-pressure in Board Schools may often
really be attributable to the breathing of a foul atmosphere for many
hours in succession." If school-rooms are not properly ventilated
and children inhale vitiated air it is obvious that should any germs
of disease be in such an atmosphere the scholars would be liable to
fall ill.
Sir Richard Thome, Medical Officer to the Local Government Board,
in a lecture delivered at the Sanitary Institute, January 10th, 1894,
on "The Etiology, spread and prevention of diphtheria" stated,
The Education Department requires so much floor space per child,
but if you have ever been into an infants' school, for example, you
will have observed that of the available floor space some two-thirds
are often monopolised by the teacher, it being necessary to aggregate
the children at one end of the room. The greater the want of
ventilation, also, the greater the risk."
Sir Richard Thorne goes on to say:—"Aggregation under these
circumstances recalls the reference to the hot-house plant. The
children are brought together; they are aggregated in a sort of hothouse;
there is often a want of due ventilation; there is overcrowding
where they are aggregated, and in fact many of the circumstances
that theoretically would tend to aggravate the virulence of the
diphtheritic poison are present."
With the ready means now at hand of testing approximately the
impurity in the atmosphere of rooms, it is hopeful that, in the near
future, some of the school-rooms in the district will be able to be
practically tested. This is really necessary, as it is well known that
the inhalation of pure air is one of the safeguards against disease.
A suggestion occurs to one's mind that during the intervals of school