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-