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183
Report of the County Medical Officer—Education.
the medical side that this was of little importance as the important points in respect to washing a baby
could only be learnt from actual experience, the use of the doll mainly consisting in riveting the interest
of the girls during demonstrations. It was recommended by the conference that those headmistresses
who desired to include the subject in the curriculum should be allowed to do so and that the necessary
apparatus should be supplied. It was considered that the greater part of the apparatus could be obtained
from the present requisition list, but in addition a model washable doll, a galvanised oval tub, and a
few other incidentals would be necessary, the total cost of which would be about 15s. per school. The
approval, however, of these proposals has been adjourned until after the consideration of the general
question of the attitude of the Council in regard to developments in education to which the Council is
not committed pending the allocation of Government grants.
The Teaching of Sex Hygiene.
In view of the fact that resolutions have from time to time been forwarded by conferences of
members of the Council and managers of schools and members of care committees recommending that
instruction in sex hygiene should be given in the elementary schools, the Elementary Education SubCommittee
appointed on the 29th April, 1913, a section to consider and report as to what action, if
any, could be taken with reference to the question of instruction in sex hygiene and purity in the public
elementary schools maintained by the Council. Evidence was taken from a number of witnesses, amongst
whom were two officers of the Public Health Department, Dr. C. J. Thomas and Dr. Josephine Fairfield.
The medical evidence was to the effect that direct instruction in matters of sex hygiene was undesirable
as a class subject in elementary schools. It was pointed out that reticence and modesty were great safeguards
and that collective teaching is an evil inasmuch as it tends to break down these natural barriers.
Dr. Fairfield gave evidence as to the undesirable conversation subsequently carried on by the children,
in an instance in which the instruction had been given partly upon ethical and partly upon religious lines
to children of ten to eleven. Recent methods of psychological analysis have shown the very great danger
of giving children premature shocks in regard to sex matters. Dr. Thomas pointed out that boys who
indulged in vicious habits were conscious of wrong-doing, and that knowledge had little effect in arresting
it. If it were sought to cure the trouble it was necessary to improve the moral outlook generally. It
was a difficult thing to deal with and was generally tackled by giving the children erroneous ideas about
the seriousness of the results. The results physically were not very serious, but the mental result was
exceedingly grave in those cases in which considerable exaggeration in respect to the physical effects had
been used in imparting information to boys already in the grip of the habit and who, while honestly
desiring to become free, found difficulty in conquering it. Both officers agreed that in specific instances
private talks with individual children by head teachers or school doctors would be beneficial, and both
were of opinion that instruction should be given in secondary schools and training colleges inasmuch
as many young men and women were launched into the world to fend for themselves without a knowledge
of dangers and diseases which existed. *
Personal hygiene.
The work of the school nurses, in so far as personal hygiene is concerned, is divided into four
parts, viz., inspection, verminous heads only, vermincus persons and clothing, and scabies.
Elementary
schools—
personal
hygiene
inspection
The nurses are required to visit each school according to a rota so arranged as to ensure that
every department is systematically examined. The head-teachers are given three days' notice of the
nurses' visits in order that arrangements may be made for the attendance of children in regard to
whom advice is desired. At these visits each child in the department mentioned on the rota is
individually examined. The nurse separates the hair with a metal comb, which is disinfected after
the examination of each child; examines the under-clothing of all case? of suspected verminous body
conditions; notes any abnormal conditions as regards throat, suppurating ears and fingers, obvious
neglect, &c.; and notes and reports every case of scalp ringworm detected, and in doubtful cases sends
stumps to the head office for microscopical examination. Upon the completion of the examination in
one department the nurse visits the other departments, and examines children found unsatisfactory at
previous visits, and children about whom the teachers require advice, interviewing parents if necessary.
The nurse also assists the teachers generally by suggesting temporary procedure in cases of
suspected outbreak of infectious or contagious disease, affections of the skin, ophthalmia, offensive
discharge, &c.; by advising in regard to the many small and doubtful points concerning school
hygiene that may be submitted to her, and by drawing the attention of the school care committees
and managers to cases in which their help would be valuable. It has not been possible, during the
year, to compile complete statistics in regard to this portion of the nurses' work, but the following
figures which refer to five of the fifty-eight electoral areas furnish some idea of its magnitude:—
Number of examinations 349,282
„ found clean 250,888
„ found verminous 98,394
Percentage found verminous 28.1
The number found verminous includes all degrees of unsatisfactory condition from the case
of a few nits on the hair to cases of head, body, and clothing infested with pediculi. In schools where
* The Education Committee, on 20th May, 1914, decided that the teaching of sex hygiene as a class subject
in public elementary schools should not be approved.