Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Westminster]
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Section 2 gives extracts from the "Regulations of the Education
Department," amongst which are the following two
Articles.
Article 88.— "The managers must at once comply with any
notice of the sanitary authority of the district in which the school
is situated, or any two members thereof, acting on the advice of
the Medical Officer of Health, requiring them for a specified
time, with a view to preventing the spread of disease, or any
danger to health likely to arise from the condition of the school,
either to close the school, or to exclude any scholars from attendance,
but after complying they may appeal to the Department
if they consider the notice to be unreasonable."
Article 83 (a) prescribes that "if a school has been closed
during the year under medical authority, or for any unavoidable
cause, a corresponding reduction is made from the number of
meetings " (400 a year) required.
Article 101 provides that where the Education Department
"is satisfied that by reason of a notice of the Sanitary Authority
under Art. 88, or any provision of an Act of Parliament, requiring
the exclusion of certain children, or by reason of the exclusion
under medical advice of children from infected houses, the
average attendance has been seriously diminished, and that consequently
a loss of annual grant would, but for this Article, be
incurred, the Department have power to make a special grant
not exceeding the amount of such loss in addition to the ordinary
grant."
Section 3 deals with diseases principally requiring action,
viz., those which spread by infection directly from person to
person, such us diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, whooping
cough, epidemic influenza, small pox and rotheln, and more
rarely enteric fever and diarrhceal diseases have to be dealt
with in a like manner.
Sections 5 and 6 deal chiefly with regard to the exclusion of
scholars from infected houses, or from particular localities, and
as to when the closing of schools is required.
Section 7 deals with the duties of a Medical Officer of Health,
when infectious disease occurs and draws attention to the aid
which schoolmasters and others can give in such cases.
Section 8 comments on the duration of exclusion from school
of particular children and states, "in this matter the Sanitary
Authority will doubtless be guided by the advice of the
Medical Officer of Health," and goes on to say: "Medical
Officers of Health, having to specify a time during which any
scholars are to be excluded from attendance at any school,
should have regard as far as practicable to the circumstances
of the particular scholars suffering from infectious disease or