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is found by a duly-appointed officer of the Council (Medical Officer or Nurse) to be in school in an
objectionable state, notice may be served on the parents to cleanse the child within 24 hours, or
it may be cleansed at the public expense and the cost recovered from them. So far as concerns the
Educational Authority, their officers alone should deal with the matter up to the serving of the
notice, and their part should cease with the serving of the notice. The following up of this should
lie with the local Sanitary Authority, but power should be reserved by the Council to take action
on default by the Sanitary Authority.
The examination of the heads has led to the discovery that the clothes and bodies of many
children are infested. And here a considerable difficulty arises, for whilst it is a comparatively easy
matter to cut a child's hair and get rid of the trouble (and one headmaster has adopted the very
sensible policy of providing a clipping machine and making his boys keep each other's hair well
clipped), in the case of clothing there is no ready means of cleansing. There is often no accommodation
in the houses, and one cannot say this child must be cleansed or turned out of school, as it
is not reasonable, with the means at the disposal of most of these people, to expect them to be able
to disinfect clothing. The pressing need of one sanitary administration in London in place of the
numerous borough authorities is nowhere better exemplified than in this question of personal
cleansing. The Cleansing of Persons Act, passed in 1897, was permissive, and excepting Marylebone,
St. Pancras, Hackney, and Finsbury, is practically ignored. For the present the experiment
will be tried of working in conjunction with the borough of Marylebone to effect cleansing of
verminous children. In cases under the General Powers Act of 1904 information has been
furnished to sanitary authorities regarding houses suspected to be vermin infested, and some
authorities have done a great deal in effecting cleansing; others have apparently done little.
Baths.—Complaints have been received, chiefly from teachers, of children with both clothes
and bodies verminous using public baths, and in some instances children from clean houses are
alleged to have become infected by this means. There are two purposes for which baths are useful
to school children, one is for cleansing purposes, the other for educational and recreative purposes.
For cleansing, the proper use of the bath has not been attempted as yet, but it is very essential
in a large city. The problem can be reduced to very simple factors: How little space is required
and how little heat and how little water is necessary to effectively cleanse a child twice weekly.
There is no reason why such baths should not be used all the year round. School baths are the
best provision to be recommended, quite apart from the question of the more costly swimming
baths.
For cleansing purposes a very shallow tank six inches deep, with a rose for a shower over each
child is used, worked by a chain which the child pulls when under the rose. In some German schools
the shallow tank is provided, others have a somewhat raised flat part with a gutter of white tiles round
about a foot broad and six inches deep. In a recently provided school the bath room was square,
with a sloping concrete edge run round, and on this twenty ordinary galvanized iron slipper baths
arranged, into which each child got before working the shower. All these devices are intended to
economise room, to save expense in heating and in cost of water.
With the campaign now being carried on in favour of personal cleanliness in schools, the
provision of school washing baths, as distinct from swimming arrangements, is becoming increasingly
necessary in many parts of London.
Diving is so notorious as a cause of danger that even healthy children ought not to be allowed
to dive from any height without protection for the ears. Mr. Cheatle called attention during the
year to the considerable numbers who appear at hospitals at the beginning of every bathing
season, where diseased ears have had violent and dangerous inflammation set up from bathing or
swimming. For these reasons it, is advisable that all children with aural disease or discharge
should be refused admission to the swimming baths.
INFECTION IN SCHOOLS.
Before 1891 there was no attempt on the part of the late School Board to organise a
systematic means for prevention of the diffusion of diseases by the schools. The Public
Health (London) Act, 1891, made it compulsory for the Medical Officer of Health to send a copy