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38
Scarlet Fever.
over all the subsequent absentees who were visited
at their homes and whose parents were warned in any
cases of suspicious illness. The result of this suspicion
was that three ne w cases were discovered at an earlier
stage than they would otherwise have been.
"Since the 25th June, in addition to those three cases
last mentioned, eight cases or eleven altogether have
been notified up to the present date. Three were of
children under school age, one of these being the second
case in the house and presumably infected from the
older child attending school, and three were of children
attending other schools but living in that part of North
Ealing where cases had occurred leaving five new
cases, two being in one house, attending North Ealing
School.
"A further examination of the children in the classes
which these cases attended at school was made on the
14th July but no suspicious cases were found.
"The remarkable feature of this outbreak of Scarlet
Fever has been the large number of missed cases, which
might be carriers of infection, compared with the
number of notified cases. The disease has been spread
in a slow and insidious way which makes its control
all the more difficult.
"This' outbreak of Scarlet Fever remind. one iorcibly
of the outbreak of Diphtheria in the same area and
connected with the. same School exactly two years
ago. It has nothing to do with the school itself, the
sanitary condition of which is excellent and the management
of which is commendable, but I am convinced
that the parents themselves are in a large measure to
blame for such outbreaks wh'ch have not been ???enced
elsewhere n the town. I have been remarkably
struck on my visits to some of the houses of the children