View report page

55
Muscular dystrophies are apt to occur in the first three years of life; it was also found that their incidence
was almost exclusively on the male sex. To meet the requirements of the Board of Education the
table of Exceptional Children on p. 98 has been made more detailed and comprehensive.
The results of medical inspection.
Routine inspections were carried out of all children in the three age groups prescribed by the
Board of Education, viz.: entrants, children aged eight and children aged twelve. The numbers comprised
34,299 entrant boys, 33,980 entrant girls, 30,019 eight.year old boys, 30,429 eight.year old girls,
33,261 twelve.year old boys and 33,174 twelve.year old girls, making a total of 195,162 children examined
in public elementary schools at the prescribed ages. In addition there were examined in the two older
age groups 1,570 children in the special schools, and 68,498 children not in the age groups were specially
examined owing to some indication of ill.health noticed by teachers, school nurses or care committee
workers or submitted for examination by the attendance officers on account of absence from school, etc.
The total number of children inspected during 1919, exclusive of scholarship children, was therefore
265,230, compared with 255,631 in 1918. The detailed results of inspections are given in tables on
pp. 97.101.
Number of
children
inspected
There was a slight improvement in the attendance of parents at the examinations as compared
with recent years, a parent being present in 58 8 per cent. of routine inspections. The increased interest
on the part of the parents was confined to the earlier ages, for a much larger percentage of the parents
attend the entrant medical examinations than the later ones. It is a gratifying circumstance that with
regard to more than three.quarters of the children entering school, a parent interviews the doctor and
obtains from him valuable advice concerning the regime to be followed and precautions to be taken in the
interest of the child's health.
Attendance
of parents at
inspection.
The proportion of children requiring treatment for some detect was slightly lower than in the
previous year. At routine inspections 83,007 children were referred for treatment, or 42.6 per cent.
as compared with 44 per cent. in the previous year.
Number
of ailing
children.
Following the practice of recent years a table is given showing the variations in the condition of
the children under the headings of clothing, nutrition and cleanliness. These figures, based upon the
huge number of 200,000 examinations yearly, give, perhaps, the most valuable indications which are
available of the changes brought about in the condition of the people by varying economic and social
influences. They were during the years of war a very enheartening feature, demonstrating as they did
that the children were not only shielded from the stress of war conditions, but that they were more
tenderly looked after during those gloomy years than they had been in the preceding piping times of
peace.
Index.
Conditions.
It was legitimate during those times to dwell upon the improvement in the children s condition,
but that improvement must not blind us to the truth that there still are children suffering from malnutrition,
parasitic contagion and ill.health. It is more than ever necessary to watch carefully these
index conditions during the difficult times through which we are passing, or may be about to pass.

*The figures for 1917 are for the third term only, when inspection of entrants in detail was resumed
after its discontinuance in 1916.