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47
Deaths.
No deaths were registered as due to scarlet fever.
Dick-Test.
Apart from those tests carried out in the isolation hospital
for diagnostic purposes, no provision was made for Dick-testing.
Schools and Scarlet Fever.
221 of those cases notified were children who, prior to
succumbing to their illness were in attendance at a public
elementary school. In 80 cases the patient was the only person
in attendance at school who suffered from scarlet fever at that
time, the onset of illness in any child who attended the same
department being separated from that of each of these cases by
an interval of at least ten days. In many other instances there
was little to suggest that school attendance was responsible for
the infection. Two cases occurred in the same department of a
school during the same week but with the preceding and succeeding
weeks both free on nine occasions, and three cases occurred similarly
once. Single cases in two consecutive weeks occurred eight times
and three cases distributed over two or three weeks on five
occasions. Five cases occurred in three consecutive weeks amongst
children attending the same departments on three occasions. Two
cases in each of two consecutive weeks were of children attending
the same department of a school but all were in different classes.
A few weeks later four cases occurred in this same school in one
week but again the children were in different classes. In a junior
mixed and infants' department during the period January 21st to
April 16th 16 cases occurred, in only two weeks there being
no notification; on two occasions two cases were notified in
one week and in one week four cases. Eight different classes
were affected but only once did the grouping suggest class infection
when two children from the same class succumbed in one week
and a third in the next. In another school seven cases occurred
over a period of six weeks. In only one instance was there more
than one child attending a class affected, two children in this
class succumbing in the same week, which was a fortnight after
the previous case in the class. After an interval of two weeks
three more children attending different classes in the department
tell ill in the same week. In a third school infection smouldered
from the middle of March until the end of the summer term. Apart
from the Easter holidays there were only two weeks in which no
infections occurred. In one week three cases were notified (two
from one class) and in each of three other weeks two cases (from
the same class on two occasions). Five classes were involved,
one having, over these weeks, eight cases, one six and the third
four. The distribution of cases amongst the classes appeared to
be most haphazard at times, an interval of a month separating
two consecutive cases from the same class. The usual investigations