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92
INFLUENCE OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE UPON
MEASLES AND WHOOPING COUGH.
The accompanying diagrams (A. B. & C.) exhibit graphically some
of the results of investigation into cases of measles and whooping
cough intimated from the schools. The cases analysed did not all
occur during the year 1907, and the cases occurring during the last
half of 1907 are not included.
They exhibit clearly the influence of public elementary schools
upon the spread of measles and whooping cough. In Diagram A. is
seen the influence of age upon school-spread measles and whooping
cough.
Children under 5 attending the infants' departments are attacked
from both those diseases in much higher proportion than those at
later age periods, and the same holds true of each year of age up to 8.
By raising the minimum age at which children are admitted to school
it is probable that the attack rate of scholars would be reduced to
something like the proportion seen in the columns at the respective
age periods.
The effect of raising the age of admission to school would be to
reduce the number of cases occurring in the infants' departments, and
as will be seen from Diagram B, these with the cases to which they
give rise at home constitute by fat the greater number of cases both
of measles and of whooping cough.
From Diagram C. it will be seen that previous attack confers a
very large degree of immunity, but that mere exposure to infection in
the homes, of children unprotected by previous attack, does not in a