View report page

28
There are however other facts which bear on the prevalence
of diphtheria. Out of the 34 cases no less than
22 occurred in houses the children from which attended
the Board School in Lyham Road. The School was
found to be in a defective sanitary condition, and was
closed for some weeks and put into repair during the
middle of the summer. Cases continued to occur, however,
after the re-opening, when the school was presumably
in proper condition. This shows, I think, that the
cause was not drain poisoning in the school, but was, in
the later cases at all events, spread by some child or
children carrying infection there, which the conditions
obtaining in a school room render very likely to happen.
Many of the cases only came to my knowledge several
weeks after their occurence, and assuming that the
teachers were also ignorant of them it is highly probable
that the proper precaution of a sufficiently long absence
was uot insisted on.
All the houses in which diphtheria occurred were carefully
inspected, and the drains tested by forcing smoke
into them. In 31 houses some defect was found and
remedied, but the defects were nearly all of a slight character,
such as a dirty cistern, or defective fittings of outside
water-closet. All the houses in the special area
above referred to were inspected, not only those in which
cases were known to have occurred.
There is no possibility of attributing the diphtheria
to milk as there was a great variety of supply.
Scarlet Fever. Only 2 deaths were due to this disease
and none at all in out-lying institutions. Considering
that 63 cases came under notice during the year, it will
be seen that the disease was of a very mild type. During
1888 there were fifteen deaths. The deaths were below
decennial average, which is 8-7.