9 
MAJORITY REPORT. 
em 
a 
are then made to discover the source of infection and to 
ensure that all precautions desirable to prevent the further 
spread of infection are taken. Occasionally these inquiries 
disclose an urgent need for wide investigation and prompt 
action, as for instance where there is reason to suspect that 
water supplies, milk supplies, or oyster layings have become 
contaminated. The Medical Officer of Health is prepared to 
assist a medical practitioner in the diagnosis of a dangerous 
disease, such as smallpox, if requested. 
(2) To provide facilities for the isolation and treatment in 
hospital of persons suffering from acute infectious diseases 
who cannot be properly isolated and treated at home. The 
powers of Section 131 of the Public Health Act, 1875, to 
provide isolation hospitals are permissive and not mandatory, 
and some districts are still without any means of isolating 
cases of infectious disease. Provision is made in the Public 
Health Acts and in the Isolation Hospitals Acts for the for- 
mation of Joint Boards or Joint Committees for the purpose 
of providing and maintaining hospitals for the common use 
of two or more sanitary districts, and the Minister of Health 
has, in some instances, made regulations under Section 2 of 
the Public Health (Prevention and Treatment of Diseases) 
Act, 1913, authorising a County Council to provide an isola- 
tion hospital for the whole or part of the County. 
43. Tn the year 1921-22 expenditure on the provision and 
maintenance of isolation hospitals amounted to about £4,320,000, 
of which only about £4,200 was met out of Exchequer grants. 
Tae ScHOOL MEDICAL SERVICE. 
44. Passing now to the school medical service we find that 
the authorities responsible for this administration are the Local 
Education Authorities which are the Councils of all Counties and 
County Boroughs and of certain non-County Boroughs and Urban 
Districts. These Authorities exercise their powers in all cases 
through statutory Committees appointed for the purpose. All 
school children are medically examined at entrance to school, at 
the age of 8, and at the age of 12, on the basis of a model 
schedule issued by the Board of Fducation, which is in general 
use in nearly every area. Any children who appear at any 
time to be ailing are also submitted to medical examination, 
and any child in whom a defect is found is reinspected sub- 
sequently. In such cases the parents are informed and are 
advised to have the defect remedied, and school nurses follow up 
the cases to see that the necessary treatment is provided. The 
parents are expected, if able to do so, to provide the treatment 
themselves, but where they are unable, for any reason, to secure 
the necessary treatment, the Local Education Authority pro- 
vides treatment for the following types of defect: minor ail-