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probability too poor to incur the expense of medical advice;
and after the child gets a little better it is sent back to School,
hurried back, perhaps, by a visit from the School Attendanco
Officer, before it is free from infection, to distribute the disease
amongst its fellow pupils.
If some system were adopted by which absentees would
not be allowed to return to School without medical evidence,
to the effect that they were free from infection, the spread of
disease would be materially checked, and the necessity for
closing the Schools would, in many instances, be obviated.
The problem of how to provide the district with an
Isolation Hospital, appears to be as far off solution as ever.
The question has been discussed frequently during the last
few years, and Committees have been appointed, and have
met to consider the subject, but all to no purpose, possibly
because the Committees have been divided amongst themselves
as to whether it would be better to provide a hospital
for the district alone, or to combine with some adjoining
Authority to form a conjoint scheme.
The need for an Isolation Hospital has been painfully
felt on several occasions. To give one—Scarlet Fever broke
out in a four-roomed cottage in East Barnet, occupied by
seven or eight persons. The disease was of a very malignant
type, and one patient died in a few days, and two others
were dangerously ill. The hygeinic conditions of the cottage
were appalling. On reporting the very grave state of affairs
to the Council, I was instructed to convert two cottages on
the Sewage Farm into a temporary hospital, and thanks to