[Report 1956] / School Medical Officer of Health, Oxford City.
- Oxford (England). City Council. no2012034102.
- Date:
- 1956
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1956] / School Medical Officer of Health, Oxford City. Source: Wellcome Collection.
9/64 page 7
![Thk ('hairman and Memt?ers oe the Education Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen, Some im])rovements have been carried out to raise the hygiene of the older school premises but progress seems to be slow. It is appreciated that uncertainty about the future of some schools makes planning difficult but that there is cause for concern is illustrated by the circumstances at one school at v/hich in order to comply with the repeated request that hands should be washed immediately after using the toilet, a child has to go across the playground, up several flights of stairs, across a hall in which a class is usually being taught and down a further flight of steps. The co-operation of head teachers is sought in reporting speedily all minor sanitary defects such as blocked drains, detached lavatory seats, broken chains, absence of toilet paper brackets, faulty flushing system, etc. In some older schools with perhaps only barely adequate sanitary accommod¬ ation, the accumulation of such minor defects can quickly give rise to a most insanitary and potentially dangerous situation. As indicated in my last report further consideration has been given to the height of school chairs and desks relative to the size of children. A child sitting well back on the seat of a chair and so making effective use of the back rest, should be able to place both feet flat on the floor. If a child is not able to place his feet comfortably on the floor because the seat of the chair is too high, then there will be a tendency for him to sit on the front of the seat and adopt a slouching round-back position detrimental to good posture. Several surveys in different schools have now been carried out and in general they showed that more attention should be given to this matter. The tendency has been to provide chairs that are too high and this is particularly noticeable in infant schools. Children vary so much in their physical make-up that it can never be easy to fit each child precisely, and the more that classes move about, the more difficult this becomes, but it is felt that with the co-operation of class teachers the more glaring misfits which have been noted could be avoided. With regard to infectious disease there has been no case of diphtheria for the eighth successive year. “Triple antigen” combining protection against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus came into use early in the year. There was a remarkably low incidence of scarlet fever, only thirteen cases being notified. Similarly there were only five notified cases of whooping cough amongst school children which is also a record low level. There was only one very mild case of poliomyelitis, and the child made a complete recovery. The new British vaccine against poliomyelitis was given to 174 children in May and June. There was a small outbreak of infective hepatitis in the Rose Hill area in the autumn and 28 school children were involved. There were two separate outbreaks of epidemic nausea and vomiting involving several schools. There was a small out¬ break of epidemic sore throat at one school in January which affected](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29942834_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
