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7
Uncleanliness.
During 1937, 208 children were found to be verminous, at
inspections made in the schools by the School Nurses. This
figure again shows a slight improvement over the previous
year's figure, but, in fairness to the large proportion of parents
whose children are invariably clean, I must repeat, as has been
observed before, that the persistence of this figure is due to a
small group of chronic offenders.
Nose and Throat Defects.
The number of individual defects are set out in Table II.
As pointed out last year, a growing section of medical
opinion is leaning to the view that if tonsils are not giving
rise to secondary conditions they do not call for removal.
Moreover the part that enlarged adenoids alone plays in producing
the conditions attributed jointly to enlarged tonsils and
adenoids has not been assessed precisely.
It sometimes happens that children, on leaving school,
have been advised and in some cases required to have their
tonsils removed. The personal element in assessing the need
for this operation will always result in differing opinions, but,
it has been the practice for some years, in this School Medical
Service, to advise operation only in cases where secondary conditions
such as enlarged glands, or recurrent attacks of throat
infection exist.

I am pleased once more to record the happy relations
existing between the staff of the Royal Waterloo Hospital far
Children and Women and ourselves, with regard to operative
treatment.