London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
London County Council 1927
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]
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64
and many other complaints, while Dr. C. J. Thomas was fully investigating the general
health of the school child.
Whereupon, step by step, sometimes inch by inch, the Council with a devoted and
not numerous band of doctors and dentists, a nurse or two, and keenly interested
lay workers, began the creation of that dental service which now treats 125,000
children yearly and performs operations totalling half a million, of which 60,000 are
performed under an anaesthetic. From one dental surgeon the number has increased
to 86; from one chair in a corner of a borrowed room the accommodation has
increased to 61 dental treatment centres, practically the whole of the County of
London being covered. Where the population is most numerous as in Islington,.
Hoxton and Finsbury, there are found centres correspondingly numerous.
It is the Council's legitimate enquiry as to whether these centres, dental surgeons,
and in fact the whole organisation, are benefiting the children ; whether this service
is adequate ; whether the efforts made are palliative only, or whether dental and oral
sepsis is being relieved and prevented.
It has been one of the objects of the last year's work on the part of the Council's
consulting dental surgeon, to answer these questions. As the "sample" school,
"Michael Faraday" stands in Walworth now as then, and as the neighbourhood
has not greatly changed, nor the inhabitants, save by the passing of time, in JuneJuly,
1927, Dr. A. Livingston carefully examined the children of the same age groups
as those examined by Mr. C. E. Wallis, using the same schedules with the exception
that it is now necessary to add two columns, to show teeth treated. The result
is given below, the figures of 1906 being in italics.
Table A.
| Approx. Age. | Born in. | No. examined. | Carious teeth temporary. | Carious teeth permanent. | Average per child carious teeth. | Purulent alveolar abscess Sinus or Fistula. | Chronic Pharyngitis. | Enlarged tonsils. | Enlarged submaxillary glands. | Anæmia. | Teeth treated. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temporary. | Permanent. | ||||||||||||
| Temporary. | Permanent. | ||||||||||||
| (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | (6) | (7) | (8) | (9) | (10) | (11) | (12) | (13) | (14) |
| None | None | ||||||||||||
| 8-9 | 1919-18 | 31 | 63 | 32 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 2 | 3 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 84 | 11 |
| None | None | ||||||||||||
| 10 | 1917 | 39 | 55 | 38 | 1.4 | 0.99 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 18 | 14 | 123 | 17 |
| None | None | ||||||||||||
| 11 | 1916 | 37 | 24 | 26 | 0.65 | 0.70 | 1 | 5 | 12 | 10 | 9 | 156 | 45 |
| None | None | ||||||||||||
| 12 | 1915 | 44 | 22 | 64 | 0.50 | 1.4 | 4 | 3 | 10 | 6 | 8 | 186 | 38 |
| None | None | ||||||||||||
| 9 | 1918 | 31 | 56 | 26 | 1.8 | 0.84 | 5 | 1 | 13 | 10 | 4 | 114 | 9 |
| None | None | ||||||||||||
| 10 | 1917 | 37 | 48 | 37 | 1.3 | 1.0 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 114 | 35 |
| Totals | _ | None | None | ||||||||||
| 219 | 268 | 223 | 1.22 | 1.02 | 19 | 14 | 67 | 65 | 54 | 877 | 155 | ||
NOTES.—It will be observed that the children recently examined were born during the war. The numbers
in the classes in the youngest age group reflect the birth-rate decline of the later war years.
Under "enlarged tonsils" is included a slight or moderate enlargement.
Under anæmia is here included maldevelopment, which is strikingly noticeable in the children born in
1917-18-19.
The figures for 1906 are in italics.