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the Girls' Department of the Trinity Schools, where, between
June 2nd and July 6th, 13 cases were notified at intervals of
one or two to five days. On June 16th Miss Lowry, the School
Medical Officer, and I decided to examine every child present
in school, as till then nothing had been found to account for
the cases. Several children were found in a very suspicious
condition and excluded. Inquiries were made at the houses of
all children known to be absent from school, and here, again,
one or two suspicious throats were found. On June 29th a
child was found peeling and excluded. The cases then ceased.
A similar condition of things happened at Haydon's Road
Boys' School in the latter part of September.
The School Medical Officer found several boys with
suspicious throats and one desquamating. Inquiries at the
home elicited the fact that the date of the visible appearance
of a rash on this boy coincided with the last day of attendance
at school of the boy first notified, and, as this lad subsequently
attended school for some sixteen consecutive days, there is
every reason to believe that this "missed" case was responsible
for the fifteen notified.
Diphtheria.—Sixty-nine cases of this disease were notified,
being exactly the same number as were notified during the
corresponding period of last year. The notifications represent
an attack rate of 1.2 per 1,000 of the population, a rate which
is identical with that of the two previous years. This may be
looked upon as eminently satisfactory considering the fact that
in many places this figure is not even a constant factor, but is
showing a marked tendency to rise.
The cases occurred in sixty houses and fifty-three of them,
or 76 per cent. were removed to hospital.
"Return" cases of Diphtheria are rare, and there is at
present a greater certainty to be obtained in the matter of
freedom from infection before discharge from hospital than is
possible in the case of Scarlet Fever. The secretions from the
disease surfaces are always subjected to examination on admission
to hospital, and no patient is discharged until one or more
swabbings have given negative results to bacteriological
examination.
The incidence of the disease in the Schools was as follows:
Effra Road Girls' and Infants', 3; Queen's Road Girls' and
Infants', 5; Queen's Road Boys', 6; Trinity Girls' and Infants',
2; Haydon's Road Girls', 2; Ilaydon's Boad Boys', 1;
Dundonald Boys', 1; Central Mixed, 2; Private Schools, 3;
Schools outside the Borough, 1.
The remarks I have made with regard to Scarlet Fever
apply equally to Diphtheria, and the necessity for isolation is
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