The construction and maintenance of school infirmaries and sanatoria / prepared by the Council of the Medical Officers of Schools Association.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The construction and maintenance of school infirmaries and sanatoria / prepared by the Council of the Medical Officers of Schools Association. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lished by the Association in 1885. The advantage of providing adequate accommodation for this purpose in every school, however small, and the absolute necessity of doing so in a school of any considerable size, is being every day more generally acknowledged. It is only the very smallest schools which can afford to be content with “ Isolation Wards,” situated and arranged at the top of the Infirmary, as described, p. 10 antea. The precise limit of numbers at which the possession of a detached Sanatorium becomes necessary to a school must remain, to some extent, a matter of opinion. But it may be laid down as a safe general rule that every school containing fifty or more boarders, should be provided with separate Sanatorium accommodation to some extent at least. But it should also be remembered that this necessity attaches with equal urgency to a school containing a much smaller number of boarders if it have, at the same time, a considerable proportion of “ day-boys.” To the smaller Grammar- schools, especially, does such a consideration apply. “ In such schools the risks of introduction of infection are even greater than in the large public schools,” because of the large proportion of day-boys attending them, and separate Sanatoria “ are therefore desirable for the sake of the boarders, and for the repute of the schools as boarding-schools.” I.—Site. The Sanatobium should be a detached building—completely isolated from school-buildings, playgrounds, infirmary, and dwelling-houses ; and yet in the line of easy communication with the school. “ A country site—dry, airy, and elevated—should always be selected, with due regard to a suitable system of drainage. In a choice of sites that should be selected, other things being about equal, which gives the best fall for the Sanatorium sewage. If, however, it be impossible for a Sanatorium to be connected with a proper sewerage system, it will be necessary that some other means of sewage-disposal for the Sanatorium be adopted ; and, in such circumstances, as this system must be entirely controlled and managed within the area of the Sanatorium site, it is essential that the area be not a confined one. Proximity to a manu¬ factory or other trade-premises is most undesirable, for purity of air and absence of noise about any hospital is especially necessary.” The site should he enclosed by a good wall or fence at least six feet high. “The Sanatorium ought not to occupy more than one-third of the area enclosed, so that there may be no overcrowding either of the build¬ ings or of the patients in their convalescing stages. The limits of area may influence largely the form of building to be erected, but the rule is a sound one that there should be plenty of free air and ground space around a Sanatorium. The site had better seem to be too large than too small in area ; and if it be larger than is at the first necessary, it will allow of additions being made to the Sanatorium buildings when these shall prove unequal to the wants of the school.”