[Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Paul U.D.C.

Paul (England). Urban District Council.

Date:: 1905

Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Paul U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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[5] attention has been given to the washing and disinfection of the body-linen of the sick and of their surroundings, and the duty of isolation has been preached, while the exclusion of children of infected houses from schools has been constantly secured. Your Authority rendered timely assistance on two occasions by issuing closing orders to the Paul School Board, and gave salutary lessons to the careless by insisting on the proper cleansing and lime-washing of the Paul School, and by successfully prosecuting a parent who wilfully exposed her children when suffering with the disease. But, in spite all, the reckless indifference of parents gave ever ready opportunities for the spread of the epidemic. When, after the disease had claimed a few victims, a stage of something like panic at Paul had succeeded a period of apathetic indifference, and parents grew afraid of committing their children to their own school at Paul Churchtown, the grave mistake was made of admitting some of these to the Mousehole School. Thereupon the cases at Mousehole, hitherto but few, multiplied. Had 1 known of this movement in time I should have counteracted it by moving your Authority to close the Mousehole School. It is to be hoped that it will never be repeated under like circumstances. It is clear, on consideration of the ways of the people on the one hand, and the close watch kept on the schools by the Inspector and myself on the other, that the school on whose register each child stands is for that child as yet unaffected the safest place of resort in the parish, being the only one from which it is possible with any success to exclude those already subjects of the disease. Of course, if children at these times are permitted to range from school to school it is difficult to trace their movements, and impossible to ensure safety to others, such children, even if healthy, creating unnecessary danger to the others by adding opportunity for the conveyance of contagion from the locality from which they come to the locality to which they go. During the panic stage the following questions were propounded to me by an anxious parent:—1. “ Could not something be done to prevent her children being allowed to go into other people’s houses where there was scarlatina ? ” 2. “ Could not something be done to prevent other people sending children from infected houses into hers ? ” She appeared to regard any interference in the matter on her own part as unneighbourly and not to be resorted to. I give this as a typical example of parental sense of responsibility. She evidently believed that all the duty there was in the matter belonged to Mr. Chirgwin, myself, and the Paul District Council. As to those who occupy in the parish the honourable position of educators of our young I would ask them at all times to remember the immense responsibility which devolves upon them of safe-guarding the health of the children when in the schools and in their charge I would draw their attention to the fact that the Sanitary Department of your Council is the only possible judge of the necessity of precautionary measures at any time and of the form that they should take, for it alone has the necessary information and training. It receives all notifications of infectious disease, and keeps its eyes and ears open for the unnotified, it patrols suspected portions of the district, visits the sick, makes diligent enquiry as to possible and probable routes of contagion, and from the first note of warning to the end of the outbreak its acts are part of a deliberate campaign, the successes of which depend alike on its comprehension of the epidemic as a whole, and on its knowledge of the details of its course. Moreover it bears the entire responsibility of all action taken, and is very properly expected to act when occasion arises up to the last limitation of its powers.