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86
STANDING ORDERS AS TO HEALTH.—No changes have been
made daring the year, and on the whole few difficulties have been
encountered.
Towards the end of the year the Committee authorised me to
obtain medical certificates in reference to those children excluded
from school on account of suspected infectious disease. It is found
in practice that for one reason or another only a small number of
cases have thus to be dealt with, but the new arrangement has
already proved useful on several occasions. Sometimes it has
resulted in the prompt return to school of the suspected case, and in
other times infectious cases have been diagnosed when they would
otherwise have been missed. A fee of 2s. 6d. is paid for these
medical certificates.
The procedure in relation to the following diseases, however,
requires modification :—
OPHTHALMIA CASES.—No special mention is made ol inflammatory
diseases of the eye in the Standing Orders. Some of these
complaints are communicable, though the majority of them are only
so to a very limited extent. Hitherto, teachers have been in the
habit of reporting most of these cases to me under Standing Order
i, which includes "other communicable diseases." On visiting
these cases the Health Visitors often find that no medical man has
been called in, and they are therefore unable to say for what, period
the children need be excluded from school. I am of opinion that it
would be an advantage if the assistance of the Ophthalmic Surgeon
could be obtained in these cases.
VERMINOUS CONDITIONS.—T eachers continue to make use of
the advisory cards referred to in the .report for 1904. Though I
believe some improvement has been effected the result has not been
as marked has I had hoped. This partial failure is due to two
causes. First and foremost, to the fact that in many of the schools
systematic inspection of the children's heads is not undertaken, and
only the grossest and more obvious cases are given warning cards.
I am therefore of opinion that the time has come when a Nurse
should be appointed to visit 2ach schooi in rotation and seek out
and, if necessary, exclude all children suffering from verminous
conditions. The matter is not a trivial one, as in some schools
about half the children appear to be infected, and it is certainly not
fair that the remaining half of the school should run the risk of
suffering from such an extremely disagreeable complaint. Personal
cleanliness must also be regarded as the first step in school
hygiene, and it would be the duty of the school nurse to devote her
energies to promoting this first essential.
Similar remarks apply to verminous conditions of the body.