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36
It is of the greatest importance, moreover, that the head teacher
should learn as soon as possible of the cause of the absence of
absentees. The present arrangements are miserably designed to meet
this very necessary requirement in the interest of disease prevention.
The school attendance officers neither visit the absentees nor notify
the teacher with anything approaching sufficient dispatch. Further, no
child who has been absent on account of illness should be permitted to
again attend school until after a medical examination. If, during the
past year this rule had been enforced, two children in Stoke
Newington would not have been allowed to return to school after
suffering from what were thought to be by their parents, trivial
complaints, but which turned out to be mild diphtheria—and capable
of giving severe diphtheria to others. Schools must continue to act
as centres of infection from time to time so long as the decision as to
whether a child should return to school or not, is left to any nonmedical
opinion.
During the year I received the following communication from a
Parishioner, and the suggestion therein contained seems a useful one.
In reference to the danger of the different scholars using the school
slates indiscriminately and to the danger thereby run of mild cases of
Diphtheria conveying the infection to others, he writes:—
"They (the slates) are all wetted and washed in the same bucket,
and if they should get dry during the school session,—of
course the spitting comes in again. Her Majesty's
Inspectors condemn the practice of children spitting on
their slates and wiping them with their caps. Still, the
custom lives. It has occurred to me whether anything can
be done to reduce this danger. To that end, I am curious to
know if the following suggestion is of any consequence:—
Every child on its entry into the school should be supplied
with a suitable slate, and its name marked on it on both
sides. The child would occupy the same place in the class
and always have the same slate; or, if removed to some
other part or class, carry its slate with it. Slates falling out
of use from children leaving, &c., might be washed in some
suitable disinfectant before being re-issued."