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strengthened by authority having been given for the removal of
unsuitable places or persons from the register. This has been done in
two instances and several have been refused registration.
Important cases have been heard before the Courts on the subject of
bakehouses, chocolate, and boric acid in cream and sausages, particulars
of which are contained in the body of this report.
The relation of the Borough Councils to the Education Authority
(the London County Council) has demanded some attention. In view
of the requirement that children attending public elementary schools
shoidd be medically examined, it was felt to be desirable on the
grounds of efficiency and economy, that supervision of such work in
each Borough should be in the hands of the Medical Officer of Health,
who is in touch with the home conditions under which the children live,
but the Education Authority have not seen fit to agree to the suggestion,
believing that the Medical Officer of Health of the County will
be able to supply the Medical Officers of the Boroughs " with all the
necessary information and statistics to keep them fully cognisant of the
working of the medical side of education and to enable them to
make use of it in their ordinary duties connected with local administration."
To give effect; to this, it will be necessary to largely
augment the clerical staff at the disposal of the Medical Officer of the
County Council. Mere inspection of the children at the schools can be
of little benefit to the children and will only lead to the compilation of
statistics of defects found. What is required is the removal of the
conditions which have produced these defects, and this can best be
done through the Borough Councils, who have power to visit at
the homes. Even the remedying of the defects found in children
cannot be insisted upon by the Education Authority. It will depend
largely upon the Borough Councils, aided by the Health Visitors
and the Health Societies, if good is to result. In Westminster the
relations between the School Care Committees and the Health Society
on the one hand and between the City Council and the Health Society
011 the other, are so intimate that satisfactory results may be obtained
if these bodies are kept " fully cognisant " of the conditions discovered.
It is probable that the work of the Health Societies which are springing
up in every Metropolitan Borough, together with that of the official
Health Visitors which the Councils are now authorised to appoint, will
eventually reduce considerably the number of defects in children of
school age.
The necessity for the Boroughs being in close touch with the
schools is shown in the account of an outbreak of Scarlet Fever in
which a number of unrecognised cases acted as a source of infection
until they were detected by home visiting.