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46
service. There are however eleven voluntary day continuation schools maintained
by the Council to which during the session 1932-33, 4,119 students under the age of
16 were admitted. At these no medical supervision exists, but the leaving
examination in the elementary schools is held to serve as the entrance examination.
There are also some 30,000 young persons between the ages of 14 and 16 attending
the Council's evening institutes for whom no medical service is provided.
The principals of the day continuation schools and of certain evening institutes
were met in conference and complete unanimity was found to exist in welcoming
proposals for the medical oversight of the students.
It has been decided by the Council as an experiment, with the approval of the
Board of Education, that arrangements shall be made during the coming year for
the medical inspection and treatment of students attending the day continuation
schools and of those attending three junior evening institutes, provided that the
students shall not be more than 16 years of age at the time of inspection and shall
not be obliged to undergo such inspection and treatment. Two of the three
evening institutes at which it is proposed to carry out the experiment are attended
by boys and one by girls.
Chronic invalidity.
The school attendance department reports each month the names of children
who have been absent from school for three months or more on account of illness.
Each year the cases on the list for the month of November are analysed, and the result
gives the only index available of the causes of chronic invalidity in childhood.
The subjoined table shows the number of children reported to have been out of
school for more than three months in November, 1933, and comparative figures for
the four preceding years.
The number of children absent on account of rheumatism, chorea and heart
disease still forms a very high proportion of the total and proves how largely this
group of diseases is responsible for ill-health in childhood, especially among girls,
who account for nearly twice as many cases as boys. Some of the children in the
"out-of-school" list on account of rheumatism and tuberculosis have been provided
for at the Council's special hospitals. Nervous disorders (including 35 cases ofepilepsy
and 12 of encephalitis lethargica) accounted for 95 children. Ringworm, formerly
a chief cause of prolonged absence from school, accounts for only 4 cases, compared
with 129 in 1919. Since the introduction of X-ray treatment for ringworm, the
average length of absence has steadily declined and consequent upon the shorter
period of infectivity the danger of the spread of the disease has likewise diminished.
Among other ailments, respiratory diseases, other than tuberculosis, accounted
for 129 cases, and ear disease for 56.
On account of the greater incidence of the rheumatic diseases upon girls (386 as
against 222 in boys), the total invalidity amongst girls is greater than that amongst
boys (1,007 to 813). There were 70 boy cripples and 59 girl cripples.