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on the 2nd day of the term during a hygiene inspection to be grossly infected with head
lice, with septic sores all over her scalp and masses of enlarged glands in her neck.
The other members of the family were infected though not so badly. The father had not
noticed anything the matter, though to the School Nurse and the School Medical Officer
who saw her, the girl looked ill and miserable. If the case had not been so quickly
found by this routine inspection the remainder of the 40 children in the class would
have soon been infected and a great deal of trouble caused to parents and scholars
alike.
In another junior school just after the Easter holidays the headmaster asked for
an inspection as a mother of one of his pupils had discovered her child to have headlice.
Two children from families who had previously given trouble were the cause of
this recent outbreak.
Also for the first time for many years in the secondary schools, grammar, technical
and modern, several quite severely infected cases of head lice were discovered at the
first inspection after the summer holiday and gave us concern for a week or two. The
numbers infected were small but if the cases had not been picked up quickly at the
beginning of term their class mates would soon have been infected. Parents have had so
little to worry about in this district in the past few years with head lice that the
children at risk would probably have been quite heavily infested before the cases were
discovered. It would seem that constant vigilance is the price for cleanliness.
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