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removal to hospital of non-isolated cases of infectious sickness,
for which Sanitarians are asking as a correlative
measure, will probably have the desired effect of limiting
the occasions on which it will become necessary to close
schools on account of epidemics, e.g., of scarlet fever.
Sanitary authorities under the provisions of the new Education
Code* have greater powers than they formerly possessed
of closing schools—powers which it need hardly be said
should be used with great care and discretion. It has been
my constant endeavour to obtain the assistance of school
teachers, and this plan has often been attended with excellent
results. The regrettable fact connected with the existence
of infectious diseases, in relation to education, is the length
of time during which children, themselves in good health,
but living in infected houses, are often kept away from school,
to the curtailment of the short period devoted to education ;
and yet at the same time they may be meeting their school
fellows at play, thus to a certain extent neutralizing the precautions
taken at school. It is obvious that fresh and even
stringent legislation is needed to enable us to cope with this
difficulty, viz., for the compulsory removal of the sick when
necessary to secure isolation.
POPULATION, INHABITED HOUSES, &c.
The population of Kensington, estimated to the middle of
the year, was in round numbers, 168,000 : males 67,830, and
females 100,670; excess of females, 33,340. The population
of the Town sub-district was, approximately, 124,000,
and of the Brompton sub-district 44,000. The natural
increase during the year, represented by the excess of births
over deaths registered, was 1,615: an estimated further
*"The Managers must comply with any notice of the Sanitary Authority of
the district in which the school is situated, requiring them for a specified time,
with a view to prevent the spread of disease, either to close the school, or to
exclude any scholars from attendance, subject to an appeal to the Department,
if the Managers consider the notice to be unreasonable."
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