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48 ranges of automatically flushed troughs.
8 ranges of automatically flushed separate closet pans.
37 ranges of wash-down closets with separate flushing
cisterns to each closet.
The last arrangement is the only absolutely satisfactory one, and is
now adopted in all new schools. The hand flushed trough will
disappear when St. James' School is closed. The automatically
flushed troughs are from many points of view unsatisfactory, and
should be replaced as occasion offers. The troughs at Mitcham
Road, Beulah Road, and Sydenham Road are the least satisfactory,
and should receive attention at an early date. Flushing apparatus
is required for the urinals at Mitcham Road Boys', Beulah Road
Infants', and Dering Place Infants' Schools. At the latter, the
entrance from the playground might with advantage be screened
from the public street. Now that water closets of the ordinary
domestic type are supplied to all new schools, there is no reason why
the sanitary conveniences should not be made more accessible from
the schoolroom. This would be an advantage in bad weather and
also favour better supervision.
CLEANING OF SCHOOLROOMS.—During the past year the
vendors of disinfectants have been more than usually persistent in
vaunting their wares—a persistence which is perhaps only equalled
by the candour with which they criticise the statements of rival
firms. Now disinfection undoubtedly is occasionally of service in
checking the spread of disease. Thus the disinfection of the
clothingof the sick, of their infective discharges and of infected articles
such as pencils and slates is a wise precaution, amply justified by
experience. On the other hand, the suggestion that we should
sterilise the walls and floors of class-rooms by chemical means, seems
to be based on a misconception of the natural history of the diseases
it is proposed to check, and a failure to estimate the relative importance
of the various channels by which they are spread. Consider for
instance two of the commonest and most serious school epidemics—
measles and diphtheria. In both these diseases infection is given off
from the throat or nose of the sufferer and, in the vast majority of
instances, from no other part of the body. Measles is specially
infectious, because cough is an early symptom of the disease and
every time a measles patient coughs infectious material is sprayed
into the atmosphere. Should any susceptible children inhale these
infectious droplets in sufficient dose, they are said to have caught
the disease and will develope characteristic symptoms in due
coarse. Rarelv infective material may settle on the clothing of
an insusceptible person and be conveyed in that way to some other
child. There is not, however, a tittle of evidence that measles
infection clings to walls, floors and desks. Indeed, the contrary is