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93
During the year it has been our custom to microscopically
examine the hairs, etc. found on these caps and worn by
children suffering from ringworm, and we have frequently discovered
the spores of the ringworm fungus in these situations.
Although it is customary among parents to consider cases of
ringworm as due to school infection it is by no means
uncommon to find the real source of infection in cases occurring
in younger members of the family who have not reached school
age. In two families where the elder scholars had been carefully
treated and watched, their relapse was due to the common
use of towels with a child of three or four years of age who was
suffering from diffuse ringworm of scalp in an active condition.
Parents are most unwilling to admit that these younger
children have ringworm—we are told it is "only scurf" and of
course treatment for these cases can only be recommended
and not enforced.
A small amount of ringworm is due to "missed cases"
occurring in the schools. Much care is taken by the teachers,
but in the poorer schools it is difficult to detect ringworm owing
to the untidy lengths to which the hair of both boys and girls
is allowed to grow.
Different authorities hold diverse views as to the best treatment
of ringworm.
In a scattered or rural district exclusion from school until
the ringworm is entirely healed is the most suitable custom, but
in urban districts the children mix so closely with each other
out of school hours that close supervision is necessary to prevent
the spread of the disease and this can be more easily obtained
by not excluding every infected child from school, but judging
each case on its individual merits.
In ringworm of the scalp where patches in the chronic stage
are discovered, practically no treatment by drugs is of much
service unless the hair is shaved or cut very close. There is nolegal
power by which this can be enforced on the parents.