View report page

93
"Older children arc usually permitted to attend the boys' or gi'ls'
"departments of schools from families in which there is at the time a
"case of measles. There is no evidence that this practice leads to
"spread of infection, whether this result be duetto the fact that the
"infective material is seldom carried in clothes, or to the fact that
"most of the children in these departments of schools are already
" protected."
In the joint Memorandum of the Medical Officers of the Local Government
Board and of the Board of Education, under the heading "Measles—B. -Rules
for the Exclusion of Individuals," the following paragraph also appears, viz:—
" (2) As regards other children living in infected houses.
"49—In large towns, and in the smaller districts in which the majority
"of children over seven years of age who are attending public
''elementary schools have had measles, the practice is frequently
"adopted, when measles break out in a household, of excluding
"from school attendance only those children of the same household
"who attend the infants' school, and those older children of the same
"household who have not had measles. These particular children of
"the same household should be excluded from school until 21 days
from the date of onset of the illness of the last patient with measles
'' in the house."
It is important to note that the age of a child as notified from schools is the
age which the child will attain, or has already attained, on the 31st March, the
end of the school year. In other words, the actual age of a child officially
notified as aged 5 may be just under 0 or just over 4 years, or a child officially
notified as aged 6 may be just under 7 or just over 5 years, according to
whether the birthday falls a day or more before or a day or more after the
commencement of the official year. As the real age of a child may vary
so much, it is desirable to apply the exclusion of children from infected houses
to the whole of the infant department, in order to avoid error and confusion,
apart from the question of the danger of infection to the whole of the department,
by exclusion of an uncertain portion and the admission of another
uncertain portion. Furthermore, up to 7 years of age the susceptibility to,
and fatality from, measles does not diminish below the serious point.
Your Council were not in accord with the view expressed by the Stoke
Ncwington Council, that all children from houses infected with measles should
be prohibited from school attendance, but having regard to the views here
expressed, they were strongly of opinion that the exclusion should apply to
the children attending the infants' departments, whether over the compulsory
school age or not. Accordingly your Council 'resolved that the London
County Council be urged that in the interests of public health, the school
regulations should provide that all children attending infants' departments in
elementary schools from houses infected with measles should be prohibited
from school attendance, in accordance with Rule 49 of tnc Joint Memorandum
of the Medical Officers of the Local Government Board and the Board of
Education on the subject, dated September, 1909.