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10
When I inspected the Public Elementary School in
South Teddington in December, I found that one-third
of the children were absent principally because they
were suffering from Measles or were living in an infected
house. As this happened about a week prior to the
Christmas holidays, I advised the Managers to give the
children an extra week's holiday. My advice was
adopted and when the children reassembled in January,
an average number of pupils were present. It is
interesting to note that there is close to this school the
Roman Catholic School, which remained free from
infection, although the majority of the children
attending it, reside in the same neighbourhood.
NOTIFICATION OF MEASLES.
On August 17th a letter was received from the
Hampton District Council asking your Council to consider
the desirability of declaring Measles a notifiable
disease under the Infectious Diseases Notification Act.
Your Council requested me to give them my opinion
upon the subject and I made the following remarks:—
"On account of the very infectious stage, before the
skin eruption appears, the notification certificate would
arrive too late to be of much value in the adoption of
measures to protect others in the infected household.
Generally, four days would elapse (during which the
infection is at its highest) before the characteristic rash
appears. Prior to the rash the disease cannot be
diagnosed, and all those who are susceptible have
probably been fully exposed to the infection. As the
poor regard the disease very trivially, no medical man
is called in; and cases occurring in small houses, often
crowded with other children, and being the most potent
for harm, would not be notified.