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69
CLOSURE OF CLASSES IN SCHOOLS ON ACCOUNT OF
INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
The Medical Officer (Education) of the London County Council usually
gives such instruction for the closure of classes in provided schools as he deems
necessary. With regard to unprovided schools, your Council, upon the advice
of your Medical Officer of Health, under Article 51 of the Code of Regulations
for Public Elementary Schools in England of the Board of Education,!gave
notice to the Managers of St. Dominic's School, Southampton Road, N.W., to
close the Babies' Class for infants under 5 years of age for a period of three
weeks from 16th November, 1910.
Measles and Elementary Schools.
On the 21st December, 1910, your Council received and considered a Report
of the Medical Officer of Health upon Measles in Elementary Schools, dated
23rd November, 1910, presented by the Public Health Committee, the most
important part of which was as follows :—
Measles - the Disrate.
Description of the Disease. —Measles is an acute specific fever, highly
infectious. After infection a period of latency occurs, during which there may
be no symptoms. This period may vary from five to ten days, then follows a
period of invasion, which shows itself by the development of the symptoms
of a cold or catarrh, and usually from the third to the fifth day of the
commencement of these symptoms the characteristic red blotchy rash
appears. The two periods of (1) latency and of (2) invasion are usually
reckoned together, and known as the incubation period, extending from the
time of infection to the appearance of the rash, and this combined period is
usually from ten to fourteen days in length. On or before the appearance of
the rash the cold often becomes a bronchial catarrh. The rash lasts several
days and gradually fades, to be followed usually by a fine branny shedding of
the surface of the skin, which also lasts a variable number of days, the patient
becoming convalescent about a fortnight after the appearance of the rash. The
usual quarantine period for the sick is at least three weeks from the appearance
of the rash, or at least four weeks from the appearance of the earliest symptoms,
and healthy children are " suspect" for at least fourteen days from the last
date of contact with a suffering patient.
The disease is most infectious in its earlier stages, and is spread mostly by
the secretions from the eyes, nose, mouth, and throat, the cough projecting
particles of these secretions to a considerable distance from the patient. Thus
the infection of measles may be conveyed—
1.—By direct contact, as in kissing, embracing, &c.
2.—Aerially, by the cough spray.
!3. — By immediate indirect contact—e.g., pencil, slate, spoon, handkerchief,
&c.
4. — By remote or deferred indirect contact—e.g., occasionally by certain
articles of wearing apparel, such as a muffler or a veil, or the neck
of a coat or bodice previously worn by a sufferer, and transferred to
a younger child within a very short time afterwards