View report page

who contracted the disease from their patients;
it is gratifying to know that they both did well.
Diphtheria.—Of this much dreaded disease
only 8 cases were notified, as against 21 cases the
year before. There were no deaths. Twenty
years have elapsed since the Infectious Diseases
Notification Act has been in force, and the average
number of cases recorded during that time is 16
per annum, so that this last year makes a favourable
show in point of comparison.
The virulence of diphtheria would seem to
vary in various years, and its infectivity, too, but
it is not a disease to be trifled with, and as its
spread, apart from the initial case, is mainly due
to personal contact, it is here that the school plays
so leading a part in extending it. Owing to the
pressure put on parents by attendance and school
officers, children are often, I am persuaded, compelled
to go to school when they are unfit to do
so. Many mothers are very unobservant of, or
turn a blind eye to, the commencing feverishness
or sore throat, very much as they do to the dirty
hands and face, and, worried by their home
duties, too often ignore or make light of these
early failings. Add to this an extraordinary
fatalism or indifference to the risks of infection
with consequent inattention to the means of preventing
the spread of disease, and there is little
room to wonder that the schools become nursing.
16