View report page

pyrexia and, in a few cases, diarrhoea, or nausea, or vomiting, or conjunctivitis. It
spread to the junior department of the school and subsequently to the infants' and
junior departments of another school. The Council's medical and nursing staff paid
regular visits to the affected schools and excluded children thought to be suffering from
the infection. The Medical Officer of Health for Islington and I sent out a joint letter
to the general practitioners in the area warning them that cases were likely to be referred
to them and that the Central Public Health Laboratory at Colindale was co-operating
in a bacteriological and virological enquiry. Special arrangements were made for segregation
of children taking school meals during the holidays. In all, 903 children were
affected, of whom 462 were excluded from school on one occasion only, 291 on two
occasions, and 150 on three or more. All cases were followed up at home by the borough
Medical Officer of Health, his and the Council's staff.
The outstanding feature of school treatment centre work in 1955 was the continued
and rapid decline in the number of children attending with rheumatism. The figures
were 23 children and 123 attendances in 1955; 33 children and 218 attendances in 1954 ;
48 children and 289 attendances in 1953. Very few cases of impetigo now come to
notice. The number of children found to be verminous again fell, from 3,561 in 1954
to 1,192 in 1955, continuing a trend evident over a number of years. Partly owing
to the declining numbers and partly owing to the continued co-operation of the
Finsbury, Stoke Newington and St. Pancras Borough Councils in making their bathing
centres available for Islington children, the inability of the Islington Borough Council
to re-open their bathing centre during the year caused no great inconvenience.
Nutrition and special investigation clinics have continued to meet a real need. Dental
services in the south of the division suffered considerable dislocation with the temporary
closure of the priority clinic at Finsbury Health centre. Patients have had to be referred
either to the Province of Natal centre or to the Thornhill Road school treatment
centre, to the latter of which the Finsbury dentist was transferred.
Three of the voluntary school treatment centres were taken over by the Council
during the year at the request of the committees concerned. A fourth committee
received notice to quit their premises in North Islington and we were able to help them
secure the use of rooms in the North Islington (Voluntary) Infant Welfare Centre
with the willing co-operation of the voluntary committee of the latter centre. The
sole remaining trustee of a fifth voluntary school treatment centre asked the Council
to assume responsibility for their premises, but the technical officers advised against
this and negotiations for a lease were being considered at the end of the year.
The Province of Natal centre is one of two centres in the County selected for an
experiment in the withdrawal of treatment organisers from certain types of session in
school treatment centres, their work being covered in its professional aspects by a health
visitor and in its clerical and administrative aspects by a clerk. These new arrangements,
which involved consultation with the District Organisers of Children's Care of divisions
2 and 3, and much detailed procedural planning, came into operation on 28th November
and seemed to be working satisfactorily at the end of the year, though it is yet too soon
for any firm conclusions to be drawn.
Tuberculosis
Following the discovery of a high incidence of tuberculosis in the borough a special
tuberculin survey of Islington schoolchildren was undertaken in 1954, with the
enthusiastic support of the Divisional Education Officer and Head Teachers, the Chest
Physician and the Director of the Mass X-ray Unit of the North West Metropolitan
Regional Hospital Board at Drayton Park. The results, published early in 1955, showed
that 5,075 children were given jelly patch tests, and of these 326 boys and 289 girls
showed a positive reaction and 2,178 boys and 2,282 girls a negative reaction. Only
4,138 of the children presented themselves subsequently for X-ray, and abnormalities were
found in the X-ray films of two boys and two girls who had shown positive reactions to
the skin test and three boys and two girls who had shown negative reactions. Four of these
nine children were found not to be tuberculous, and were given appropriate treatment.
141