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The Romany Road nursery school was transferred at. the beginning of 1927
from the Mission Hall in Romany Road to newly erected premises with accommodation
for 40 in Gipsy Road. These premises are commodious and well arranged
and are a great improvement upon the former arrangements.
School meals.
The systematic examination of samples of milk supplied to necessitous and
other children has been continued during the year. The total number of samples
analysed was 1,312. Of this number 101 (7.7 per cent.) were found to be " unsatisfactory,"
66 (5.0 per cent.) containing added water and 35 (2.7 per cent.) showing a
deficiency of fat. The maximum addition of water in any one sample was 20 per
cent., whilst the greatest abstraction of fat was 70 per cent. Appropriate action was
taken in all cases.
In connection with the provisions of meals at Feeding Centres, 11 meals were
submitted to examination in the Council's Central Laboratory, and when necessary
attention was drawn to the need that existed for an increase in the nourishing and
heat-giving constituents.
Supervision
of dietaries.
The control of infectious diseases among school children.
One of the problems with which the municipal authorities of large towns are
concerned is the control of epidemic diseases, particularly as affecting children of
school and pre-school age. The tendency, which has been growing for many years,
in the direction of migration from rural parts and the smaller towns to the large
industrial and commercial centres has intensified the problem, by contributing
towards overcrowding, and by the influx of susceptible persons from the more
isolated areas where zymotic diseases are not so common.
This latter phenomenon has been particularly noted from time to time in
connection with the opening of new housing estates around London, where in several
instances outbreaks of diphtheria quickly follow upon the development of an estate,
due, it is surmised, to carriers of the disease, who are immune, coming from congested
areas and mixing with susceptible children from less populous districts.
The year 1926 was chiefly marked by an increased prevalence of diphtheria,
and the biennial outbreak of measles which commenced in the closing weeks of the
preceding year. Scarlet fever showed a slightly increased incidence, whilst mumps
and, to a less extent, chicken-pox were also prevalent. There was a considerable
decline in the prevalence of whooping cough, and a further noteworthy drop in the
number of cases of ringworm due to increased resort to X-ray treatment. The
following table shows the incidence of the various infectious diseases reported by
school teachers during the year as compared with the preceding four years.
Whilst preventive medicine has made rapid strides in combating such gastrointestinal
and insect-borne diseases as cholera, typhoid fever, yellow fever, malaria,
plague, as well as small-pox, etc., there still remains a wide field for scientific study
with a view to the reduction, both of incidence and severity, of those diseases conveyed
through the respiratory channels, e.g., diphtheria, measles and whooping
cough, and those affecting the central nervous system such as cerebrospinal fever,
poliomyelitis and encephalitis lethargica, all of which still exact a heavy toll of life
and suffering among young children.
In this connection much has already been achieved as a result of investigation
and research in recent years, and whilst it must be admitted that in regard to certain
diseases measures of prophylaxis are still regarded as being in the experimental stage,
one important discovery, namely the Schick test and active immunisation against
diphtheria, is an established method of protection now being increasingly adopted.*
*A full report on this question by Dr. J. G. Forbes will shortly be published by the Medical Research
Council.
Introductory.