The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1922-02-09
REPORT OF COUNTY NURSE

were given physical inspection by the
county nurse; Rapids School, Manito-
voc Rapids; Fillmore School, town of
Two Rivers; Public School, Reedsville; (;
Public School, Maribel; McAllister
School, town of Mantowoc Rapids;
Woodland School, Kiel.
Number of pupils inspected, 277;
number of pupils with defects, 240;
number of pupils excluded from school
because of some communicable disease,
Il; number of notes regarding physical
defects of pupils sent to parents, 65;
number of home calls for school chill
dren, infants, tuberculosis, investipa-
ton of communicable disease, etc, II:
number of health talks to school chill
drcn, 3; number of talks to parents, l 4;
number of letters sent from Office, 224;
number of health booklets distributed,
25; number of miles covered in county
with car, 32l; number of teeth, 1888 (;
tonsiles, Al; eyes, 4; vision, so; hear
ing, 4 nasal breathing, 10; speech, 8 !;
glands, lO7; skin, 4; bones, 4; pedicu-
losis, 2.
The teachers in the county are all
working hard for healthy boys and
girls and it is surprising how much the
teachers can do, in this respect In
one school that was visited last fall
there were found to be IL pupils that
were underweight. Since that time the
boys and girls have been drinking milk
and have tried to eat more vegetables,
etc. This week visit to the same
school showed that every single pupil
in the school had gained and not even
one was underweight
A large number of the schools are
serving hot lunches at noon, sometimes
even without proper equipment. One
school visited this month the teacher
had been unable to interest her school
board in purchasing the necessary
equipment for hot lunches, but she was
determined to have hot lunches in her
| school so she devised this noval method.
Every day each child brings to school
a pint can containing some such thing
as, cocoa, milk, thick creamy soup, rice
or some vegetable. At | 80 these are
placed in a large dish pan containing
hot water and by the time school is dis
missed for the noon hour, these cans
are all hot At this school a paper
J towel is placed on the desk of each
child and the food spread out on the
desk and then their hot dish is served
to them. The children must remain in
| their seats for at least twenty minutes,
so that they eat their food slowly and
do not grab a sandwich and run out
and play at the same time, as was done
in a good many of our schools few
years ago.
The smallpox epidemic seems to have
abated somewhat for very few schools
have reported new outbreaks
In all schools where there have been
school children with smallpox there has
been compulsory vaccination of all chill
dren. This is the only safe way of stamp
ing out smallpox, the only one ap-
proved by the State Board of Health.
Closing the schools does not do this
nearly as effectively for there are other
places where people may be exposed to
the disease.
One school in the county has had five
cases of diphtheria. In this school
throat and nose cultures of all the pu-
pills and the teacher were taken and
sent in to the State Laboratory for ex-
animation. Of these cultures two were
reported as positive and two as sus-
picious cases. The positive cases are
already quarantined and the suspicious
cases were recultured and new speci-
mems were sent into the laboratory for
examination.
Neither smallpox nor diphtheria are
the great menace they were 80 years
ago for the vaccine for the former and
anti-toxin for the latter make il posi-
BILE to check them, but with scarlet
fever we have no adequate means of
protection.
The past month there have been
cases Of scarlet fever in three schools
IN the county with one death.
SMALLPOX AND VACCINATION
DR. G. T.. Hoyt, who has been in
this county recently incident TO at
tempts on the part of the State Board
Of Health to bring smallpox into fur
ther subsection, states that compre-
hensiye campaign by the physicians,
health officers, and county nurse, Miss
Nohr, Is In progress in some sections
of the county and ultimately will be
in all looking to the suppression of
tins malady not only in the present but
in the future, in so far as extensive sue
cessful vaccination will conduce. I'm
munity, he says, Is natures way of CON
troll, but to develop that, either vaccn-
alton or smallpox must prevail. Pub
lie health authorities of this and all
lands long have uniformity approved of
vaccination as the only rational and
definitely effective improvised process.