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Sufficiency of
clothing
There is little alteration in the condition of the children as regards clothing and what alteration
there is has been in the right direction. Attention is, of course, chiefly paid to the sufficiency, warmth
and suitability of underclothing and the general slight improvement suggests that it has become more
easy to supply the children with proper under garments than it was during the war years in spite of
any deterioration of economic conditions.
Nutrition of
the children
It is to the nutrition figures that greatest attention will be paid. During the war years there was
a notable improvement in the general physical condition of the children as shown by the state of their
nutrition. In 1919, however, it was remarked that there was a perceptible deterioration of the
nutritional state and that this was especially marked in the case of the infants entering upon school
life, in whom it might be expected that the earliest reaction to adverse circumstances would be seen.
Unfortunately this deterioration has continued and is now shown in boys and girls at all three ages,
but especially in the case of the eight-year old group in which the greatest amount of under-nourishment
is apt to be found. Although the deterioration is not as yet alarming it is significant and reflects the
effects of combined high prices and unemployment. The significance of the figures is underlined by
their close correspondence with the numbers of children requiring to be fed at school. There
is serious cause for concern at the fact for instance, that nine per cent of the boys at the age
of eight are marked as under-nourished, and that the number so marked has increased during the last
two years.
Cleanliness
Dirt remains the greatest enemy with which we have to contend and it is gratifying that progress
continues to be made in the cleanliness of the children attending the schools in spite of all difficulties.
Though steady, this progress is slow but it is only maintained at all through the very strenuous efforts
made by the school nurses backed up by the authority and interest of the teachers. As in the case
of clothing the condition of the children in regard to cleanliness as revealed by medical inspection
shows the best that can be attained rather than the state which normally obtains. Parents are warned
of the medical inspection and naturally trick the children out in their best clothing and send them
especially well washed and brightened up for the occasion. It is beyond the powers, however, of a
careless mother to remove from the long hair of the girls the manifestations of long neglect shown by
the presence of nits. More than twenty per cent. of the girls show these traces of verminous infestation
at medical inspections. This percentage, however, is a marked improvement on the state of affairs
which existed only a few years ago. Of eight-year old girls in London, in 1913, 30.3 per cent. had nits
in the hair and in 2.4 per cent. even at medical inspections, live vermin were found; in 1920, 21.9 per
cent. had nits and 1.6 were afflicted with live vermin. In 1913, 30.4 per cent. of twelve-year old girls
had nits and 2.4 per cent. had lice; in 1920, 22.8 per cent. had nits and 1.4 per cent. lice. Medical
inspections, therefore, show that there has been a 3.0 per cent. improvement in seven years in verminous
conditions and this improvement has been accelerated during the last three years during
which a great forward campaign against infestation by vermin has been going on, since the Council
made addition for the purpose to the personnel of the school nursing staff.
Dental
conditions
Although little alteration from year to year is noted in the condition of the teeth of children on
their entrance to school there is evidence of slight ground being gained each year in the condition of the
teeth of the older children. This must be due entirely to the results of dental inspection and medical
inspection of the children coupled with the increase of facilities for dental treatment.