Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/665

 A MODEL MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT 641

Cases of chicken pox are reported by mail, and are visited by the district medical inspector within twenty-four hours, for the pur- pose of confirming the diagnosis and for necessary treatment. All children excluded from school on account of measles, scarlet fever, chicken pox, smallpox, or diphtheria, are not allowed to resume school attendance until they have received a written cer- tificate from the district medical inspector.

3. Absentee work. Every Saturday morning the school inspect- ors must visit the houses of all children who have been absent for several days from their respective schools, and report the conditions to the school authorities and to the district medical inspector where necessary.

The inspectors are also required to ascertain from the prin- cipals and teachers of their schools the names and addresses of all children said to have contagious diseases in their families, where notification has not been sent to the schools by the Depart- ment of Health, and forward such names with their daily reports.

Under the present system the average inspector makes about 4,500 examinations per week, the exact number depending on the size and location of his schools as well as on his own effi- ciency. His main object and, indeed, the root principle of all medical school inspection should be, and is under the present system, to prevent contagion rather than to cure disease. This point cannot be emphasized too strongly. The inspector must never interfere with the work of the family physician, but simply hand over each child to him or to a public dispensary or hos- pital. Any doctor in the service of the department who attempts in any way to use his official position to increase his private practice will be immediately dismissed.

But the results were not yet perfect. During the first two weeks of the school year beginning September 15, 1902, 588 public, parochial, and kindergarten schools were visited, and of the total of 572,717 children examined no less than 13,024 were excluded. This, to be sure, was a most gratifying increase over the previous records of the department; for, under the old sys- tem, during the quarter ending June 30, 1902, the inspectors examined only 81,700 pupils, of whom only 4,941 were excluded.