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71
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
The Chart shows the number of cases notified during each
week of the year.
The maximum number of cases, viz.:—21, was notified in the
second week of April, and the minimum, viz.:—two, in the fifth
week of August. The period of school holidays in July and
August was particularly free from the disease. In September and
October the number of cases slightly increased, and another maximum
was reached in the second week of November, when 15 cases
were notified.
At no period of the year was there any definite outbreak, and
this is doubtless due to the methods adopted, not only in this
Borough, but in the Metropolis generally for dealing with cases of
Diphtheria in schools.
The Medical Officer to the Education Department, London
County Council, receives copies of all notifications of infectious
disease, and when his attention is called to a succession of cases in
one school means are at once taken to swab the throats of all
children in the classrooms in which cases have occurred. Meanwhile,
the officers of the Sanitary Authority have obtained lists of
absentees from schools, and all the homes are visited, and if any
cases of sore throat are found the throats of these children are at
once swabbed and a bacteriological examination made.
In this way any outbreak is prevented, and no child who has
had sore throat is permitted to return to school until a negative
bacteriological result has been obtained.
This method has been carried out during 1908 most successfully,
and I am certain that it was the means of preventing serious
and fatal outbreaks in several schools in the Borough.
Diphtheria and School Attendance.
The following Table shows the number of cases of Diphtheria
and their relation to the schools in the Borough.