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xi.
(3). Infectious Diseases. Before entering into this question I would
point out that the statement on page 98 of the first volume of the Report, to the
effect that nothing is being done in this district with regard to medical matters
connected with the children in the Schools is not quite correct. A system of
voluntary notification between the head teacher of each School and the Health
Department is in force, and has been for some years. If a child is absent
from School on account of what the teacher has reason to think is some
infectious disease, or is sent home because the teacher thinks it is suffering
from some such disease, the teacher sends a notification to the Health
Department on a form supplied by the Department, giving the name and
address of the child. When a case of infectious disease is notified officially
to the Department, a printed notice is sent to the head teacher, informing
him that a certain child attending his School is sufferring from an infectious
disease, and that it and all other children in the same house or family must be
excluded for a stated period. This is all that can be done under the powers
possessed by the Medical Officer of Health at present, and the notifications
received from the teachers are not nearly so numerous as I should like them
to be. It is not part of the duty of the teachers to send these notifications,
and I am afraid that except in times of epidemics they very often forget to
do so. I in no way blame the teachers. They do all they have time for,
cousidering that they have no definite instructions in connection with medical
inspection, and I have always received from them the most willing help and
co-operation whenever I have had occasion to visit any of the schools.
There are four specific infectious diseases to which children are peculiarly
liable—namely, Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, Measles and Chicken-pox, and the
work of the Medical Officer to the Schools in connection with them would form
the most important part of his duties, and the part from which the first good
results would be seen.
Only two of these, Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria, are notified officially
under the Act to me in this district, but of the infectious diseases that the
Health Department has to investigate they are of primary importance. The
great majority of the cases of these two diseases notified are children attending
the public elementary schools, and they form a large percentage of the patients
admitted to Mogden Hospital. The other two are not notifiable in this district,
and therefore cases of them do not come to my notice officially. It may be
well to consider each of these four diseases by itself.