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Cases are referred to the Clinics from school medical inspections, or are sent in by Head
Teachers, School Attendance Officers, and Health Visitors. The majority of the cases, however,
are sent in by Head Teachers, who doubtless realise the value of prompt treatment in maintaining
a good school attendance.
835 cases of minor injuries, bruises, sores, chilblains, etc., and 288 cases of skin disease,
were treated during the year at the School Clinics.
Since the middle of 1929 the Minor Ailments Clinics have been kept open during school
holidays (except such general holidays as Christmas Day, Bank Holidays, etc.), but there is always
a considerable drop in the attendance when schools are closed, which points to the fact that, but
for the vigilance of Teachers and Attendance Officers during term time, many of the cases of
minor ailments would go untreated and neglected.

In addition to providing daily treatment for minor ailments, these Clinics also serve as
centres for the more detailed examination of special cases than is possible at routine medical
inspections at schools. The number of cases attending these Clinics has been so great that in the
early part of the year we had to allocate a further half-day session each week at the Hounslow
Clinic for special examinations by the medical officer.

Ringworm of the Scalp.
This year there has been a large increase in the number of cases—47 in all having occurred,
the majority of which came from the Isleworth area.
Every endeavour has been made to check the spread of the infection, and whole schools
have been examined in the hope of detecting hitherto unnoticed cases which might be a focus of
infection.
During the year thirty-seven cases were treated by X-ray under the Authority's scheme, one
had X-ray treatment elsewhere, whilst twelve refused X-ray and had other treatment privately.
Unfortunately in a number of cases X-ray treatment did not prove the speedy means to a
cure which it had done in the past, with the result that a number of cases remained infected for
many months, and although excluded from school, remained a source of danger to other children,
and in all probability accounted for some of the new cases which occurred.
In the Spring a mercury vapour lamp with Wood's glass filter was obtained as an aid to
diagnosis in the large number of children who needed to be examined. Previously we had relied
on a clinical examination with removal of suspected hairs for microscopic examination. Microscopic
examination is absolutely certain provided that an infected hair has been removed, but it is
easy to miss a few infected hairs in a thick crop of hair. With the Wood's glass filter this is
impossible, as each infected hair is clearly picked out and can then be removed for microscopic
examination. This is the routine now adopted in each suspected case, first examination under the
Wood's glass filter, and secondly, any infected hairs found are removed and examined under the
microscope to confirm the diagnosis.
No children are re-admitted to school until they have had two negative examinations at an
interval of one week. After re-admission they are kept under observation and re-examined under
the Wood's glass filter until the Medical Officer is satisfied that there is no return of the infection.
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