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85
MINOR AILMENTS.
Minor ailments treated at the various school clinics again
showed a decrease during the year 1954. 4,079 attendances were
made for treatment.

Treatments are carried out by the School Nurses as need arises,
and any cases attending minor ailment clinics and requiring medical
advice, are referred to the General Practicitioner or to the clinic
doctors at their visits. The very close contact between the teaching
and medical staff was maintained throughout the year.
The decline in the number of cases treated at the minor ailment
clinics continues, but does not necessarily mean that minor ailments
themselves are any less. There is an undoubted tendency to make
greater use of the services of the family doctor whenever a question
of curative treatment arises, but the clinics are still fulfilling a
useful prophylactic purpose in that by dealing with these small
defects and injuries as they arise, they are helping to prevent the
development of greater disabilities with the consequent loss of
valuable time to both doctor and patient.
SCHOOL HYGIENE.
There have been no noteworthy improvements carried out
during the year under review.
School canteens have frequently been inspected during 1954,
and the high standard of cleanliness and personal hygiene of the
workers encouraged and maintained. We are very fortunate in the
high standard attained by the school canteens, for it helps clearly
to produce the urge for cleanliness in the children at a most
impressionable period of their life. This lesson once learned is
unlikely ever to be forgotten, and should help to build up a
generation practising food hygiene automatically.
PERIODIC MEDICAL INSPECTIONS.
Three hundred and eighteen medical inspection sessions were
held during 1954. when 3.998 children were medically examined
(1953 figures were 286 sessions and 3.983 examinations), the
average attendance at each session being 12.6 compared with 13.4
for 1953.