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factors could not be accepted as being operative. Of the first cases
reported in April, no child gave a history of having suffered from
plantar warts long enough to have contracted or developed the
trouble during the previous summer. It was therefore possible
that some other unknown or unsuspected agent might be responsible.
In April, 1938, the Leyton Education Authority decided to
put into operation during the following month a scheme whereby
swimming instruction—at the Council's Public Baths—should be a
compulsory subject in the school curriculum for junior and senior
pupils attending public elementary schools. About that time
certain dermatologists and chiropodists had expressed the opinion
that outbreaks of plantar warts were probably attributable to
dissemination of infection at public swimming pools. Under the
circumstances some investigation into possible sources of infection
was clearly indicated in an area in which swimming was part of the
school curriculum, even if only for the purpose of finding out the
children suffering from plantar warts and excluding them from
attendance at swimming instruction.
Scope of Investigation.
The investigation was undertaken in order to ascertain the
number of children, attending public elementary schools in the
Borough of Leyton, who were suffering from plantar warts and
to make arrangements for the necessary treatment. The first
school inspection was made on 3rd May, 1938, and the last on
14th October, 1938. The investigation therefore deals with pupils
attending public elementary schools in an extra-metropolitan
Borough during that period.
The first school to be inspected was Sybourn Street, as that
was the school in which the greatest number of cases had been
found by the medical staff of the Health Department. The inspection
was begun in the infants' department where, of 312 infants
examined, only one was found to be suffering from plantar
warts in very mild form. On the other hand, in that school 26
junior and 17 senior pupils were discovered to be severely affected.
On account of the apparent relative immunity of children in
the infants' department, and in order to arrange in the first place
for the treatment of the age-groups chiefly affected, it was decided
to confine the investigation to children in the junior and senior
departments (i.e., to children of 8 years of age and over).