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80
With regard to the loss of school attendance in the two periods,
the new regulations in force during the second period apply only to
contacts of home-treated cases; but it will be observed that whereas
in the first period 214 contacts lost at least 12,840 school attendances,
in the second period 261 contacts lost only 2,610 attendances.
Of course the number of cases dealt with in this investigation
is relatively small, and it is far from my purpose to contend that they
afford conclusive proof one way or the other, especially as there are
so many factors involved; but from the evidence accumulated so
far there is every reason to doubt the necessity for the school
exclusion, during the whole period of the illness, of contacts from
homes in which scarlet fever patients are isolated. T. consider that
the results are sufficiently encouraging to justify the continuance of
the modified regulations.