Dr. Page's report to the Local Government Board on recent prevalences of scarlatina at Donington and Moulton, in the Spalding rural sanitary district, in relation to school attendance / [David Page].
- Page, David, M.D.
- Date:
- [1883]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Dr. Page's report to the Local Government Board on recent prevalences of scarlatina at Donington and Moulton, in the Spalding rural sanitary district, in relation to school attendance / [David Page]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![18. On leaving Spalding I left the following memorandum with the Medical Officer of Health:— “ In regard to the question you have asked me of re-opening Honington schools, I should coincide with your view as to the desirability of re-opening at an early date, provided that the following conditions are observed :— “ 1. That, prior to re-opening, earth-closets replace the common vault privies at the Grammar and Elementary Boys’ Schools. The caretaker informed me that the vaults are emptied only at long intervals, not once a year : hence a possibility of retained infection. “ 2. That notice be given throughout the parish for every family from which children come to school, to be required to present a certificate (not necessarily in first instance a medical one) on morning of re¬ opening, stating whether any member, young or old, has had illness of any kind during the outbreak. Such certificate might specify kinds of illness from such apparently trifling causes as mumps, sore- throat, or so-called ‘ red rash.’ “ 3. Children belonging to families having had illness to be then excluded until you and Mr. Bollon have visited the house. “ 4. In all cases where sore throat, ‘red rash,’ roseola, or scarlatina are known to have occurred, no child to be admitted without your certifi¬ cate as to freedom from infection. Dr. Jollye may now help you in this matter by furnishing names of families, heretofore unknown to you, and which have been private cases as distinct from the poor law district sickness. From what you tell me, and from what I have had opportunity of seeing during my inspection, I should hope that the outbreak as such has subsided.” [I have since had a communication from Mr. Stiles informing me that the needful sanitary improvements have been carried out, and that the re-opening of the schools would take place in accordance with these suggestions on February 27th.] I have to thank Mr. Stiles and Dr. Jollye for their kind and indispensable aid during my inquiry, and Mr. Bollon for a plan drawn to scale and other detailed information relating to the schools. Moulton. 19. Learning while in Spalding that scarlatina had quite recently prevailed at Moulton, a village five miles east of Spalding, I communicated with the Medical Officer of Health for this division, Dr. England, and went there on January 20th. I found that the prevalence had then subsided, and that the whole of the attendant circumstances had been well investigated by Dr. England, which his somewhat exceptional advantages as the only resident medical practitioner, as well as District Medical Officer and Registrar of Births and Deaths, enabled him the more thoroughly to do. Dr. England was good enough to furnish me with a complete list of the affected families, from which it appears that the outbreak had been confined to 14 households, in which 44 cases of scarlatina and scarlatinal sore-throat had occurred. There were no deaths. Many of these cases were of mild character and unattended during illness. 20. The village of Moulton is situated about the centre of a peculiarly long nnd narrow parish of this name, and extends for some distance on both sides of a road crossing from Moulton railway station to the Spalding and Holbeach turnpike. The population is nearly 800. The schools are three in number; the Grammar School, an Endowed Lower School for Boys, and a Board School. The daily average attendance at this latter is 86. Owing to facilities of school attendance in closely adjoining localities, children do not come from any great distance beyond the village. 21. Moulton had, so far as is known, been free from scarlatina for two years until the 11th November last, when a young man named Hitchcock came from Terrington, in the neighbouring Wisbech union, with ulcerated throat, for which he consulted Dr. England. During the fortnight he remained in Moulton he lodged at his mother’s house. On November 25th a boy of seven, named Simpson, son of the groom at the Yicarage, attending the Board School, began in scarlatina.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30557252_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
