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Officers of Health was held, by invitation of the Board and at
their offices, for the purpose of considering what steps, if any,
should be taken with the view of preventing the spread of
infectious disease through the medium of Board Schools. The
meeting, which was sparsely attended, adopted the following
resolutions, amongst others:—
"(3) That a notification of the occurrence of any of the (specified) 'infectious
diseases' be at once forwarded by the Medical Officer of
Health to the head teacher of the school attended by the children
of the infected household.
"(4) That on the completion of the disinfection of the infected premises, a
certificate be sent by the Medical Officer of Health to the head
teacher, in the same manner as the previous certificate."
I ventured to dissent, not alone, from the proposal to send
information of infected persons and premises to the teachers of
the several schools, urging what I considered to be the
superior advantages of the plan of sending a daily report to the
Superintendents of Divisions, there being only ten Divisions in
the Metropolis, whereas there are several hundred Board Schools—
to say nothing of a great number of other public elementary
schools (most of them having three Head Teachers, for the Boys',
Girls' and Infants' Departments respectively), the absentees from
which are looked-up by the "Visitors" appointed by the Board.
The desired information, as I pointed out, if sent to the Divisional
Superintendent, could be collated by an officer whose duty it
would be to send immediate notice to the Visitors, who would
communicate to the teachers of the several schools the names
and addresses of school children living in infected houses. Some
of my colleagues thought it sufficient to exclude children belonging
to the infected family, but I contended, in accordance with
our invariable practice, for the exclusion of all the children, in
the case of an ordinary house let out in tenements, during continuance
of infectiveness.* My amendment to resolution (3), viz.,
*The infectious house is visited immediately on receipt of the notification
and all school attendance forbidden, so that there is no delay in giving effect to
the Board's Regulations in regard to infectious disease.