HEALTH OF CHILDREN.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXIX, Issue 3939, 3 July 1918, Page 2

HEALTH OF CHILDREN.

REQUIREMENTS OF MODERN SCHOOLS, '

IMPORTANCE OF CLEANING.

EXCLUSION OF INFECTED

SCHOLARS,

The requirements of the modern school from the 1 point of view of a medical man were discussed by Dr. Watt, District Health Officer, iri a lecture delivered by him at a meeting of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Education Institute (says the Dominion). The subject of the lecture was "Infectious Diseases in Relation to Schools." ;

Dr. Watt spoke of the necessity for guarding children against infection, especially with the object of preventing the spread of disease throughout the entire social community. His greatest point was that the school should be such a place as. to afford the children an opportunity of becoming strong to resist disease. The school premises should be- so planned as to afford a hygienic environment f for the child. The site for the building should be dry and sunny, with., good drainage, and ample space for.. playgrounds. Trees should be planted as breakwinds where necessary, and these trees should afford facilities for the taking of some classes out of doors. There should be ample shed accommodation to protect the children from wet weather when they were out of the class-rooms, and there should be asphalt footpaths to keep the feet of the /children dry in rainy weather. The building should consist of the requisite number of school rooms, and not simply of a whole cut up into a number of rooms, the size and shape of which must de- , pend oh the plan of the original building. The lighting of class rooms demanded Special attention. There should be sufficient window space to provide efficient lighting, and never should there be back or. right hand lighting. Adequate floor space per child was essential, and an authority on the subject had declared that the * minimum should not be less than: 15 square feet per child, with 150 cubic square feet of air space per child, ancT^ 1500 cubic feet of fresh air per child ■ per hour. Very few of the schools in New Zealand approached these .requirements. The walls should be, so distempered that they might be easily washed, and all rooms should be properly heated and ventilated. Above all the building should -be kept clean. Dr. Watt's suggestions about the amount of cleaning and disinfection that were really necessary would-be received with horror by most school janitors and the people who employ them. Foij* instance, he would have no such alleged cleaning process. as dry dusting or dry sweeping, his opinion being that the latter only served to remove the germs from the floor, where they were least of all likely to do harm, and to move them on to the desks and other parts in contact with the children. He insisted on the importance of frequent disinfection, always preceded by niost thorough cleaning. All rubbish should be collected from the grounds daily, placed in proper receptacles, and removed^^ at least once a week. • jH

Drinking water was a frequent source of infection. In towns the question of water supply was not difficult, but in the country, where the schools were for the most part dependent on rain water, it was serious. He deprecated the single drinking cup chained to the tap. The only drinking cup system was the bubble drinking fountain, and in the country where that was impossible, * there should be not one, but many, cups, and they should be sterilised once a day, preferably by boiling.

Close care should be taken to prevent the spread of infection when epidemics were known to be in a locality. Special precautions should be taken with regard to the young children of the - infant room, for the youngest children were the most liable to infection. Infected children and contacts should be excluded frorn^, the school for the proper time, ar«h4|j should not, under any consideration, be allowed to come into school again until after the period of infection had passed. School closure was an extreme measure only justifiable in extraordinary circumstances. Generally the closing of schools in towns was & farce, because the children stayed , away from the class-rooms only to congregate in picture ,l\alls and other places, under conditions much worse than those existing in the school. In the country it had been found that" 1 better results had followed the closing of schools. In town schools the best results had been achieved by the prompt exclusion of suspects. He thought that every teacher should have some training in hygiene to enable him to detect symptoms of infectious disease. The diagnosis would sot need to be complete or final. The matter would be reported to the medical.'officer, who would make a proper diagnosis. ; ;