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" of themselves but as an integral factor in the health of the
" nation. The application of this principal requires that the
" work of medical inspection should be carried out in intimate
" conjunction with the Public Health Authorities and under
" the direct supervision of the Medical Officer of Health. The
" advantages of such unification of the Public Health services
" have already been recognised by the Inter-Departmental
" Committee on Medical Inspection and the Feeding of School
" Children, and also by the Local Government Board, who
" specifically require every Medical Officer of Health to report
" officially upon matters relating to the sanitary condition of all
" schools, including the 'action taken (by the sanitary authority)
" in relation to the health of the scholars and for preventing
" the spread of infectious disease.'"
" Dual Control.—It is unnecessary to emphasise the
" objections to a dual jurisdiction in such matters as the
" sanitary control of school premises and the notification and
" prevention of the spread of infectious diseases in which the
" duties of the Medical Officer of Health and the School
" Medical Officer necessarily and obviously overlap. If they
" are to be effectively carried out the interests and activities of
" the School Medical Officer must extend over the whole
" external environment of the child. School hygiene cannot
" be divorced from home hygiene, and this in turn is intimately
" bound up with the hygienic conditions of the community.
" Efficiency and economy require, therefore, an organic
" relationship between the daily work of the school authority
" and of the authority responsible for the administration of the
" wider branches of public health, including the supervision of
" water and milk supplies, food, housing, and sanitation,
" inquiries into matters affecting infant mortality (including
" ante-natal influences), home visiting by men and women
" inspectors, sanitary and bacteriological investigations, the
" provision of hospital accommodation, disinfection, the
" cleansing of verminous persons, the notification of the
" prevalence or otherwise of diseases, such as phthisis,
" affecting the adult population, and the consideration of social
" factors, such as the occupation of the parents, or the health,
" habits, and physical conditions of the family, all of which
" have a bearing, direct or indirect, upon the children's health."
" Conversely this organic relationship will provide in"
creased opportunity and facilities for the Medical Officer of
" Health to study all the conditions affecting the health of the
" community at all age-periods, and will bring him into closer