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diseases to which they refer. No less than 2,418 of these notices
were sent by the Public Health Department during the past year.
In the event of any serious school epidemic all the energies
of the Health Department would be employed in stamping it
out. The Laboratory is prepared at any time to examine large
quantities of nose and throat swabs.
No schools or departments have been closed during the year.
The School Medical Officer does not advise the closure of schools
except in rare instances, for when the children are scattered to
their homes and the schools are closed, the Health Department
loses at once its main source of information about prevalent
sickness.
The school buildings have been disinfected from time to time
during the year.
The large amount of clerical work concerned with infectious
diseases in the schools is done by the clerks in the Health
Department and not at the School Clinic. During the year the
excessive prevalence of scarlet fever has greatly increased the
work of the clerical staff in the Health Department.
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.
It was not found necessary to take any legal proceedings
during the year under S. 12 or S. 122 of the Children's Act.
Under the latter section 394 preliminary and 129 statutory notices
were served on parents, and children were compulsorily cleansed
in 37 instances.
CONCLUSION.
The work of the School Medical Service is the logical continuation
of that which is done by the Maternity and Child
Welfare Committee among mothers and young children. The
aim of those efforts is to safeguard the lives and health of little
children until they enter school and come under the protection
of the School Medical Service. All the work that we do among
these school children has for its object the protection of their