View report page

99
though, to notice that Acton Wells was one of the schools
which was not daily sprinkled with a disinfectant.
Both diseases are compulsorily notifiable under the
Infectious Diseases Notification Act and on receipt of a
notification from the medical attendant a visit is paid to the
home and inquiries made as to the probable source of infection.
If the case is removed to the Hospital, all the other children
living in the infected house are excluded from school attendance
for eight days. If the case is nursed at home, other children
living in the house are excluded from school attendance until a
period of eight days has elapsed since the premises have been
disinfected. If the case is removed to the Hospital, the child
js excluded from school attendance for three weeks after discharge
from the Hospital. Similarly, in home isolation, a
period of three weeks is demanded after the disinfection of the
premises before school attendance is resumed.
The disinfection of the clothing and the rooms is carried
out by the Sanitary Authority. The bedding, etc. are stoved in
the steam disinfector and the rooms fumigated with formalin.
Without entering into minute details of the means
employed, it may be briefly stated that our efforts at the
prevention of Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria are directed towards
the isolation of the patient and the disinfection of any articles
which may have become infected. In other words, it is assumed
that the infection in both cases is direct and indirect, but the
tendency is to attach greater and greater importance to the
direct mode of transmission of infection. It is possible, of
course, that the disease is spread in some indirect manner, but
the more carefully the inquiries are made, the less numerous
do the indirectly infected cases become. It is true that the
untraced cases constitute the great majority occurring in urban
districts, but it is also probable that many, if not most, of the
untraced cases have been suffering from so mild a form of the
disease that the illness has not been recognised. It is these