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14
Holidays on Friday, December 18th, instead of December 23rd.
The names and addresses of all the children attending the two classes
were obtained, and the houses visited before the school re-opened
after the holidays. Five cases of Measles were found and these had
sickened after the closure of the school. The regulations for exclusion
of children from premises where Measles existed were
observed, and no cases occurred in other houses.
It is probable that Measles would not spread very extensively
amongst the children attending these two classes, as one class was
exceedingly well protected. 90 per cent, of the children in one of the
classes had suffered from a previous attack. The other classes in
the school were not so well protected, and it is reasonable to assume
that a large number of children would have been infected if the five
cases had attended school when suffering from the initial symptoms.
The closure of single classes has been tried in some districts
with varying success. Some state that this has been the means of
postponing an epidemic at any rate for some months. Even if the
epidemic were postponed only for a few months, in some circumstances
this might mean a saving of life. In the poorer districts, it
ts well known that an epidemic of Measles is more serious and more
fatal if it occurs in the winter months than it is in the summer. A
large number of the deaths are due to lung complications and these
are far more frequent during a winter than a summer epidemic.
Apart from the question of a lengthened inter-epidemic period, if the
first case were detected in a school during the winter months, the
closure of a class for a fortnight would be well worth a trial.
During the late epidemic, the earlier cases were not detected,
and the Schools were not closed until the outbreak had got beyond
the stage of effective control.
Rothschild Road was the first school to be affected, and by the
end of February the attendance had fallen so low that it was
decided to close the school from February 28th, to March 23rd.
Acton Infant's Department was closed from March 16th to April 6th;
Priory Infant's from March 27th to April 27th, South Acton Infant's
from April 10th to April 27th ; Beaumont Park Infant's from April
10th to April 27th and East Acton from May 1st to May 18th.