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11
In order to see to what extent this factor prevails in
Plumstead, I have, in the past year, gone to great pains in
obtaining full information concerning the school attendance
in all the cases of Diphtheria that occurred last year.
11. Out of the 148 cases of Diphtheria, 77 or just over onehalf
attended School; 71 or just under one-half attended no
School. In 45 cases no School was attended by other children
in the family. In 85 cases School is stated not to have been
attended within one week of the attack. If, as is generally
supposed, the incubation period of Diphtheria is under a
week, it follows that in more than a half of the cases in Plumstead
last year School attendance was not the direct cause of
the infection, and it also appears that in nearly a third of tne
cases School attendance could not have been either the direct
or indirect cause of the infection.
12. Fifty-nine of the patients were under 5 years of age ;
of these 12 attended School, or 20 per cent, I find that of 185
consecutive notifications of all the infectious diseases, Scarlet
Fever, Diphtheria, Enteric Fever, Erysipelas, &c., in children
under 5 years, 42, or 22 per cent., attended School. Whence
it appears that School attendance is less connected with the
infection of Diphtheria than with that of the other infectious
diseases. This is markedly the case with Scarlet Fever, as
is shewn by the fact that in Scarlet Fever a much larger
proportion of the patients were of School age than in
Diphtheria.
13. As regards the Schools attended the cases were pretty
well distributed. Ancona Eoad and Bloomfield Eoad had the
largest number of cases; Eglinton Eoad the fewest, viz.: none.
This immunity of Eglinton Eoad School has lasted since 1890,
and is connected with a comparative immunity of All Saints'
Parish.