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242
If the same proportion of Public Elementary School
Children exists between the ages of 1-5 as between the ages
of 5-14, it follows that there were in Willesden at the Census
of 1911, 11,038 children between the ages of 1-5, who would
in the course of time be in attendance at the Public Elementary
Schools. This number of children would require as
much medical attention as the 22,090 children attending
Public Elementary Schools, among whom (5-15 years) only
321 deaths occurred, as compared with 860 deaths which
occurred amongst children between the ages of 1-5 during
the five year period 1909-13.
Teeth.
The necessity for the care of the teeth in young children
under school age is now recognised as a matter of vital
importance to health. All food must enter the body via the
mouth, and if decay of the teeth and oral sepsis, i.e., suppuration,
are present in the mouth, harmful bacteria enter
the body with the food-stuffs, and give rise to various
diseases, depending upon the nature of the bacteria ingested.
In connection, therefore, with Infant Welfare, it is
necessary that at least one dentist should be appointed, and
this practice is, in fact, in operation in several baby clinics
already established.
Nutrition.
I have already indicated the important part that want
of proper or sufficient nourishment of the mother and child
plays in the deaths of infants, and the crippled health of
young children. In this connection it cannot be too strongly
urged that efforts made to anticipate the need for help are
infinitely more valuable and less wasteful than the cure or
r
relief of the break-down which is the inevitable result of
insufficient feeding.