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110
Annual Report of the London County Council, 1914.
It will be seen that the rheumatic group of diseases forms the highest proportion—nearly 25 per
cent, of the total—among the causes that produce protracted absences from school. Next comes tuberculosis
in various forms, 13 per cent. It is gratifying to find that the number of returns relating to ringworm
has fallen from 234 to 178 and not only are the cases fewer, but the average period of absence
appears to have been considerably shortened.

Many of the causes of absence are due to conditions which, while causing great suffering and
incapacitating children from attending school, should with proper care and attention be cured in a shorter
period than three months. Such conditions are scabies and various external affections of the eyes. A
beginning has been made in the direction of notifying such cases to the local care committees with a view
to the investigation of the home conditions and the regularity of medical treatment, and in suitable cases
to the provision of daily nursing or convalescent treatment, or to securing attendance at the cleansing
stations. The particulars of the examination by the Council's own medical staff in 201 cases, as a result of
which it was found that two-thirds were fit for school, are as follows :—
Fit to return
to school
Unfit to return
to school.
Attendance not
to be pressed.
Physically defective
school.
Further
examination.
Camberwell 6 — — — —
Chelsea 2 1 — — —
City and Stepney 6 — 1 — —
Greenwich 7 6 — 1 1
Hackney 1 — — — —
Islington 3 — — — —
Lambeth 4 2 — — —
Paddington 1 2 — — —
Poplar 20 12 1 1 —
St. Pancras 3 — — — —
Southwark 30 18 — — —
Wandsworth 47 16 — 9 —
Total 130 57 2 11 1
Tuberculosis.
Reference was made in the annual report for 1913 (page 156) to the part taken by the school
medical service in the detection of tuberculosis among children and in bringing the cases under the
notice of the various agencies engaged in securing appropriate treatment. It was then foreshadowed
that, while the question of school attendance or certification for residential treatment will remain the
function of the school medical officer, the problem of treatment will fall to be dealt with as part of public
health administration carried out under the machinery brought into existence by the compulsory
notification of tuberculosis under the Local Government Board Tuberculosis Regulations, 1912, by the
establishment of dispensaries by borough councils, and by the constitution of the Council as an authority
under Section 64 of the National Insurance Act, 1911, for providing institutional treatment for persons
suffering from the disease.
The work of the school medical service in connection with open-air schools, playground classes,
and schools for physically defective children, where provision is made for cases of tuberculosis in early
stages of the disease is dealt with elsewhere in this report. As regards the year 1914 it may be of interest
here to mention that 755 children or 0-33 per cent, of those examined under the Elementary Education
(Administrative Provisions) Act, 1907, were found to be suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, and
further 631 or 0-28 per cent, from other forms of tuberculosis. The boroughs from which the lowest
percentages of pulmonary tuberculosis were reported were the City of London and Hampstead, while
those with the heaviest percentages were Chelsea, Fulham, Stepney and Poplar.