[Report 1950] / School Medical Officer of Health, Anglesey County Council.

  • Anglesey (Wales). County Council. no2003102100.
Date:
1950
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1950] / School Medical Officer of Health, Anglesey County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The test used wus the patch-test” which is not a highly sensitive test. There is no doubt, to my mind, that the Mantoux 1:100 test, for instance, would have shown that the amount of infection in school A” was even greater in comparison to the others than is shown by the above figures. When the 13 positive cases are analysed by their ages we obtain: School “A” Schools 7 and under 0 3 8—11 10 0 11 plus 0 0 All the positives in school A” are in the three-year group, 8 to 11. The tuberculous teacher taught the class aged S to 9 so that most of these positives were in or had recently passed through this class. There are those who contend that the examination of teachers cannot be justified because: — .(a) they are not the only people in contact with children; (b) the danger of infection from a teacher is small anyway. On point (a) the obvious answer is that teachers are in contact with many children. The incident in school A” in my opinion, gives the lie complete to contention (b). The evidence, though perforce circumstantial, strongly supports the view that children in school A” were infected in school by a teacher who was in an infectious state. Fortunately, in this instance, the children, though infected, did not develop any serious form of the disease. They were all seen by the Qiest Physician and no untoward results have been observed. But serious illness, even deaths, might have occurred and such tragedies have been noted from time to time in the past. This incident served to underline the need for stronger powers to be vested in the Local Education Authority if the spread of tuber- ailous infection in school is to be adequately guarded against. The matter is under consideration at a national level at the time of writing, but it remains to be seen whether for example the recommendations of the Minister of Health’s advisers on tuberculosis are to be imple- mented in full.