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109
In 1925, the Ministry of Health and Board of Education
issued a Joint Memorandum on Closure of and Exclusion
from School in which recommendations as to the exclusion of
cases and contacts of infectious diseases are made. Although
these differ in some respects from your regulations, I have
not thought it necessary to advise you to alter the Regulations.
The most important differences between the recommendations
in the memorandum and your regulations are :—
1. In the case of Infant contacts of Whooping Cough,
the exclusion period recommended in the memorandum
is 6 weeks from the date of onset of the last case
in the house. I consider this period unnecessarily
long.
2. In the case of Measles and Chicken-Pox, the
Memorandum recommends the exclusion of senior
contacts who have not had the disease. This is
logical and reasonable in theory but in practice I do
not think it is passible to make arrangements for
obtaining the information in all cases; moreover,
the information when obtained is so often unreliable
that I do not think it practicable to draw a distinction
between those who have and those who have
not had the disease; and as I explained in the report
quoted above, I do not consider that the attendance
of a few senior contacts, even if they have not had
the disease, is a factor of much importance in the
spread of the disease.
Taking everything into consideration, I think that your
Regulations are as satisfactory as such Regulation can be
made, and that the recommendations in the Official Memorandum,
where they differ from your regulations, would tend to
increase the loss of attendance without a corresponding
benefit.
EOLLOWING UP.
When children are found to be suffering from defects
their parents are informed, and advised to consult their own
doctors. The school nurses visit the homes to see if this has
been done and to urge the parents to obtain treatment if they
have not done so. 3,454 visits were paid by the School
nurses. The defective children are re-examined in the schools
and at the Clinic by the Medical Officers to ascertain the re-