[Report 1911] / Medical Officer of Health, Bournemouth County Borough.

  • Bournemouth (England). County Borough Council. nb2004301338.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1911] / Medical Officer of Health, Bournemouth County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    School Pencil Boxes. or nose swabs subjected to bacteriological examina- tion, and the same system is applied to the school contacts if the child* has attended school. Any “ carrier” case discovered thereby is isolated and supervised until there is definite proof that there is no infectivity. No town in a civilized com- munity can be certain that an infectious case will not be introduced into its midst; but it rests with every town’s Health Administration to prevent the spread of disease. As an instance of the supervision of the Health Authority, the control of Diphtheria in 1908 may be instanced. The disease was brought into the town and the Elementary Schools in 1908 and the Education Authority determined that its spread should be prevented. Because there were cases in the Schools, full investigations were made by the School Medical Officer, bacteriological specimens from the throats of contact children were made, and also from the ])encils used by the children in the Schools, with the result that every child in the Elementary Schools of the Borough was pro- vided with separate pencils and pencil boxes. The risk of the spread of infection was thereby limited, and the County Borough continued its fine position among the large towns for freedom from Infectious Disease. Although the provision of pencil-boxes for each child in the Schools had an undoubted effect at the time in checking the disease in 1908-9, the system cannot be relied upon, for the instinct of barter appears to be strong in children, and pencils, etc., are frequently exchanged; moreover, the teachers cannot give sufficient supervision to the “ one child, one pencil box ” system. Therefore, medical and bacteriological supervision of the School classes is necessary, and the combination of all the methods has, I believe, contributed to our