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57
Infectious diseases in schools.

The number of cases of smallpox notified (and confirmed) among school children
during the year was 419, compared with 604 in 1931. A special reference to the cases
of ringworm found in the schools appears later in this section of the report.
As has been explained in previous annual reports, head teachers are required
to report particulars of all children absent from school or excluded on account of
infectious illness or suspected infectious illness, or of infection in the homes, to the
school medical officer, the borough medical officers and the divisional officers (school
attendance). The information thus supplied forms the basis of any special preventive
action taken in the school. The information is also of special value to the borough
health services as it is only by this means that the existence of the bulk of nonnotifiable
infectious diseases is brought to light.
The necessity for obviating delay in transmitting these daily records is obvious,
and, although the compilation of reliable information as to the reasons for absence
is often a matter of difficulty, the work done by the teaching staff, with the co-operation
of the attendance staff, in this connection is worthy of the highest praise.
Every effort is made in the light of experience gained to reduce the loss of school
attendance on account of infectious diseases, and reference has been made from time
to time in previous annual reports to amendments, which have been made with this
end in view, to the exclusion periods both of patients and contacts.
After consulting the borough medical officers of health and the Board of Education,
it was decided, in June, to alter the regulation regarding the exclusion from school
of certain home contacts of measles, German measles, chickenpox and whooping
cough. Under the Council's regulations, home contacts of these diseases attending
senior departments of the schools are allowed to remain in attendance if they have
already suffered from the disease concerned, and this regulation has been applied now
to. children attending the. hinrliost class in infants' denartinenfcs.

The children in six schools were also specially examined from time to time on
account of outbreaks of ophthalmia (four schools) and trachoma (two schools).
In addition to investigations by medical officers, valuable work was done by
the school nursing staff in following up the medical officers' visits in connection with
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