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Cap-worth Street and Newport Road Schools. The remaining cases
were adults and children under school age who were not in any
way implicated in the school cases.
There was no evidence warranting any suspicion that the
epidemic was due to milk.
The Medical Officer of Health visited all the schools affected
and examined all the children in the affected classes, and took
swabs of every case in the slightest degree suspicious. All
contacts in the homes were swabbed and several carriers were
detected. All cases and carriers with very few exceptions were
removed to hospital and kept until two negative swabs of both
throat and nose were obtained.
In the course of the investigations at the schools a few points
seem worth recording. In the first place, prior to June 13th no
case of Diphtheria had occurred in connection with Ruckholt Road
School since October 20th, 1923, nor in Harrow Green School
since April 26th, 1924, with the exception of one, a child belonging
to Bethnal Green Schools, where there was an epidemic at the
time. This child last attended on March 17th, 1925.
In Harrow Green School a child was found with definite
clinical Diphtheria. She was the daughter of a milk vendor. She
was at once admitted to hospital, the milk on the premises
destroyed, and the selling of milk prohibited until the results of
swabs of all the members of the family were known. These
proving negative the business was allowed to be resumed.
In some of the throats which yielded positive results the
tonsils were observed to present a dull lustless appearance, to have
a sort of "bloom" on them resembling a freshly picked plum.
Many of these cases subsequently developed membrane, others did
not, but as they were all promptly treated the treatment may have
aborted the development of membrane. This "bloom" appears
to be a pre-membranous phenomenon and may repay attention in
examining contacts.
To satisfy the apprehensions of certain parents and teachers,
at the end of the epidemic two classrooms at Ruckholt Road
School were sprayed with Formalin. No other school disinfection
was attempted.
The Medical Officer of Health paid 15 visits to the schools
and personally visited 32 houses.
The total number of swabs taken during the six weeks June
13th to July 25th was 188.