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53
with lodging or accommodation in which proper precautions could be taken to
prevent the spreading of the disease," and of taking steps to obtain an order
of detention, if he is not satisfied, and in the meantime every lawful means
will be used to discourage removal; but until a Justice's Order is actuallymade,
the Board has not the power of detention.
As regards the case in question, I may say that the Special and Medical
Sub-Committee did not see that any blame was attachable to the Acting Medical
Superintendent in the action which he felt bound to take.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
T. Duncombe Mann.
Clerk to the Board.
C. Barrett, Esq.,
Vestry Clerk,
St. Pancras, N.W.
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Exclusion from school on account of infectious diseases.—The protection of
schools, especially day-schools, from infectious diseases is surrounded by
difficulties and complexities.
The certifiable infectious diseases are small-pox, scarlatina, diphtheria or
membranous croup, typhus, enteric, continued, relapsing and puerperal fevers,
cholera, erysipelas, and plague. All children in houses in which these
diseases exist are excluded from school, except in the case of puerperal fever,
erysipelas, and enteric fever.
Of the non-certifiable infectious diseases, in the case of chicken-pox,
measles, whooping-cough and mumps, forms are supplied to the head
teachers of schools for the notification of children excluded from school either
as suffering from the diseases or as coming from infected house", in order to
encourage exclusion and the prevention of the spread of the diseases bv
enabling the Government grant to be recovered upon the certificate of the
Medical Officer of Health.
It has been held also that gcrraan measles should be classed with measles,
and that scabies (itch), impetigo contagiosa, ringworm, ophthalmia and sore
throat are diseases to be excluded.
It is more difficult to decide what diseases in the house should preclude a
healthy child from attending school than in what diseases it should be necessary
to exclude a suffering child, since most teachers would send home a child
suffering from unhealthy symptoms, such as a rash or eruption that might
indicate eruptive fever, diarrhoea or vomiting that might precede cholera or
other zymotic disease, cough or expectoration suspicious of whooping-cough
or consumption, sore throat or hoarseness premonitory of scarlet fever or
diphtheria, snuffling or nasal catarrh forerunning measles, not to mention also
swollen glands, flushing, shivering, and drowsiness.
The question is whether a child living in a house in which another child is
suffering from scabies, impetigo contagiosa, ringworm, ophthalmia, or sore
throat, should be excluded from school ?