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The health and well-being of school children
is now the subject of legislation, and great attention
is being paid to their physical and mental
conditions with the object of detecting and bringing
under suitable treatment the various ailments
that, if neglected, prejudice their healthy growth
and form serious obstacles to their ability to
profit by the education sought to be given them.
Of course the daily aggregation of large numbers
of children even in the best constructed buildings
must and does favour the development and spread
of germ diseases, and more attention should be
given to the proper cleansing of school, class and
cloak rooms. I therefore recommend that for the
future, for hygienic reasons, a proper and thorough
cleansing of all the occupied rooms, to be followed
by a spraying of the walls, &c., with a suitable
disinfectant, should be resorted to during the
holidays, that is, three times a year, as this will
assuredly tend to lessen the extent and severity,
and diminish the liability to spread, of the various
infective and contagious diseases.
Accumulated dust may and does contain the
germs of tubercle and ringworm when any of
these complaints have been found on children
frequenting the schools, besides those of the
ordinary infective and notifiable ailments. These
methods are in practice in many districts, and the
best and most satisfactory results are reported.
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