HEALTH OF CHILDREN
REQUIREMENTS OF MODERN SCHOOLS IMPORTANCE OF CLEANING EXCLUSION OF INFECTED SCHOLARS. • The requirements of the modern school 3 from the point of view of a medical man J were discussed by Dr. Watt, District ■ Health Officer, in a lecture delivered bv him at a meeting of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Education : Institute. The subject oi the lecturo was "Infectious Diseases in Relation to I 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 child an opportunity of becoming strong to resist disease. The sohool; premises should be so planned as to afford a hvgieuic environment for the child. The site for tho building should be dry and snnnyj with good drainage, and ample space for playgrounds. Trees should be planted as breakwinds whore 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 thero 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, tho size and shape of which must depend on the plau of the original building. The lighting of class rooms demanded special attention. There should bo sufficient lyindow space to provide efficient lighting, and never should there bo 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 feet of air space per child, and 1500 cubic feet of I'resh air per child per hour. ' Very few of the schools in New Zealand approached these requirements. The walls should be so distempered (hut 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 peoplo who employ them. For 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 most thorough cleaning. All rubbish should bo collected from the grounds daily, placed in proper receptacles, and removed at least once a week.
Drinking water was a frequent sourc" of infection. In towns the question of water sunply was not. difficult, but in the country, where the schools were for Iho most part dependent on rain water, it. was serious. He dcnrecated tho single drinking cup chained to the tap. The only reasonable system was tho bubble drinking fountain, and in the country where that was impossible, thero should be not one, but many, cups, and they should be sterilised onco 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 tho most liable to infectiou. Infected children and contacts should be excluded from the school for tho proper time, and 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 a farce, because the children stayed away from the classrooms only to congregate in picture halls and other places, under conditions much worse than those existing in the school. In the country it had been found that better results had followed tho closing of schools. In town schools the best rosults 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 not need to be complete or final. The matter would be reported to the medical officer, who would make a proper diagnosis. After the lecture Dr. Waft answered a few questions, and then the meeting accorded him a vote of thanks for lii> interesting address.
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Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 241, 29 June 1918, Page 10
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800HEALTH OF CHILDREN Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 241, 29 June 1918, Page 10
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