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not only be liable to infect the children from their own homes
(which they would do in any case) but would probably infect children
from other schools. Their own schools being closed, they would
Seek recreation in the playgrounds of other schools.
Besides, unless the Sunday Schools were also closed, we could
not cxpect success. At the present time, if quarantine is to succeed,
we should have to include cinemas among the banned spheres,
For these reasons school closure has been abandoned.
There are other reasons against school closure, and for the
modification of individual exclusion from schools. It has been
Shown that a Measles epidemic does not arise in a community until
the percentage of susceptible children rises beyond 25% and seldom
Subsides until this susceptible population is reduced to under 20%.
During an epidemic not only is there a permanent immunity which
an attack of Measles confers, but a certain amount of temporary
latent immunity also occurs. This occurs with every epidemic
So that when a child who attends a public elementary school reaches
the Junior department stage, he or she has either suffered from an
attack of Measles, which usually confers a permanent immunity,
or has acquired immunity through successive sub-clinical doses ;
he or she is not likely to suffer from another attack of Measles.
•
For all practical purposes, under present conditions. Junior
and Senior departments of elementary schools are not factors in the
spread of Measles, and can be ignored. We do not therefore
exclude contacts from these departments and there is no spread
of the disease among the pupils of these departments. ' Even in
Infants departments those who have already had an attack of
Meases are not excluded because they are contacts. The revised
Code Regulations have facilitated these procedures. Formerly
for grant purposes, it paid to close, a department or school because
the average attendance might drop very low, but now if the attendance
drops below a certain mark on account of epidemic disease,
a Certificate to this effect enables the weeks of low average attendance
to be ignored in the calculation of the grant.
Scabies.
Scabies is a highly contagious skin disease caused by the
burrowing of a minute animal, the Acarus Scabiei, under the skin
of hands, feet, and body. The resulting skin affection is very
itchy, the itching being worst at night. The usual treatment consists of sulphur baths to the infected person with the use of sulphur