View report page

37
for the year 1903. There was a sharp outburst of the disease, however,
during the months of June and July in the Southern part of the
Borough, and it was found necessary to close the Infants' Department
of the Oldfield Road School for two weeks from the end of June.
Our difficulty in reducing the prevalence and fatality of Measles is
evidenced by the fact that the death-rate from that disease has undergone
very little reduction during the last ten or twenty years. With the
reduction in parental ignorance, which our improved system of
education must effect, we may hope for some reduction in this mortality,
but probably the best step which could be taken in order to bring
about that desirable result is in the direction of excluding all children
from school until they reach the age of at least five years. A very large
amount of Measles is contracted through the accumulation of the most
susceptible infants in the crowded class-rooms of our schools, and the
effect of the exclusion referred to would be to postpone the age of
exposure and attack and therefore to reduce mortality. Measles is most
fatal at about three or four years of age, and every year during which
one can postpone the attack is very much in favour of the child. The
loss to education would be practically nil. A child under five is
certainly too young to benefit from almost any conceivable scheme of
education. The large amount of money spent on the so-called
"education" of babies under five in elementary schools could be put
to a far better purpose by applying it to the needs of higher education
and the periodical medical inspection of the scholars.