Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for West Ham]
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The following Table gives a list of such cases notified by School Attendance Officers, and subsequently visited by Sanitary Inspectors during the year in question :—
Measles | 2218 |
Chicken Pox | 1211 |
Whooping Cough | 322 |
Mumps | 57 |
Tonsillitis | 133 |
Other Diseases | 1507 |
(16) Co-operation of Voluntary Bodies.
The following Societies or Associations in particular render
useful service to the School Medical Department:—
(1) Invalid Children's Aid Association.
(2) Invalid and Crippled Children's Society.
(3) Central Association for Mental Welfare.
(4) National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children.
The first two Societies notify to the School Medical Officer
ailing children who come to their notice as requiring convalescence,
or crippled children requiring surgical appliances (or alteration
to same).
During the year 54 cases were referred by the above Societies
and examined in regard to surgical instruments.
During the same period 215 children of scEool age were examined
and sent away for varying periods of convalescence.
Occasionally the Inspectors of the N.S.P.C.C. have been
called in to help in cases of persistent neglect, and their visits
have a moral and material effect on neglectful parents.
The Central Association for Mental Welfare interests itself
in mentally defective educable children during and after school
age.
(17) Blind, Deaf, Defective and Epileptic Children.
(a) The ascertainment of these exceptional children is
obtained from two sources. The School Attendance Department
have a complete list of all "out of school" cases and of those
already placed in Institutions.
The “out of school” cases have all at some time been submitted
to the certifying Medical Officer to ascertain their fitness for
ordinary school, their fitness for a special school, or their total
unfitness for school life.
177