London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

London County Council 1904

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]

This page requires JavaScript

42
normal children, and there is no class of child likely to profit so much individually as this class,
with often limited, sometimes quite local, brain defects, which, if misunderstood, may result in the
child, who might be made a capable citizen, having to spend his life in an asylum. But even with
pathological cases the results of bygone diseases, and especially when combined with such defects
as deafness or blindness, partial or complete, the only chance of doing thoroughly good work is by
having them properly observed and recorded by skilled examiners, both from the medical and
psychological point of view. This work will have to be done in a residential home with full
Diagram XI. (see page 41).
Diagram to show Variation in Mental
Capacity from Physiological Causes.
The tendency of pathological effects
shewn by dotted lines.
opportunities for complete clinical study, and such home must be also regarded as a place for
classification and investigation of the physical and mental conditions of the children.
In a certain proportion of cases, for want of this preliminary study extending over some weeks,
the special school training appears in great measure wasted. On the other hand, all general
information obtained by this means is of value in being applicable to, and will react on, the work
of the normal children in the ordinary schools.

The children submitted with a view to special training numbered 5048. These were presented at 339 examinations, with the following results:—

Blind.Deaf.Mentally Deficient.Imbecile.Physically Deficient.Invalid and Epileptic.Ordinary School.
61601,7611497761,0261,216