Wood, Thomas

2018-01-31T11:40:35Z

2018-01-31T11:40:35Z

1904

The question of Hygiene, in relation to the spread of disease in schools, and the exclusion of children therefrom, also the subject of hygienic furnishings, such as school desks and seats, periodic disinfection of school buildings, along with all slates, books, maps, etc., as well as careful medical supervision and inspection, has, considering the great and vital importance of the subject, received far too little consideration from the present constituted authorities.

Medical Science has made great strides respecting the knowledge of contagious and dangerous diseases, and their dissemination. Vital statistics clearly prove that this knowledge, and the measures recommended when practically applied, have had a most beneficial effect in preventing the spread of those diseases, and in checking mortality therefrom. Hillier (Public Health, March 1903, p. 301) calls attention to the probable extinction of Phthisis in a generation or more, and presents a diagram, in which the descending line for England shows a probability of such an extinction about 1945 to 50 and in Prussia 1925 to 30. The death rate from this disease has fallen in England from 24 per 10,000 of the living population in 1886 to 19 in 1900; in Prussia there has been a more rapid fall, viz., from 31 per 10,000 in 1886 to 21 in 1900. This decrease is largely attributable to the discovery of the tubercle bacillus and the measures taken to prevent the spread of the disease since its infectious character has become better known.

Public schools bring children from all kinds of homes into close contact with each other; they therefore become the means of spreading infectious diseases, consequently the greater knowledge we now have of their specific cause and propagation, entail new and greater duties on School Authorities, and it necessitates their taking every care and precaution lest the school should become an agent for the spreading of disease. The individual rights of every child are such, that it ought not to be exposed in school to contagion, or infection, if by taking certain precautionary measures such exposure may be avoided.

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/27707

The University of Edinburgh

Annexe Thesis Digitisation Project 2017 Block 16

Already catalogued

Public health of schools : and the necessity for a state department of hygiene

Thesis or Dissertation

MD Doctor of Medicine