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195
Report of the County Medical Officer—Education.
The children are examined on admission by the medical officer of the institution, who fills up
on a prescribed lorm the conditions noted on examination.
When a child or young person is committed to a certified school this form and the elementary
school medical record card, if any, are forwarded to the school and are retained thereat until the child
or young person to which they refer attains the age of 16 or 19 years, as the case may be, when they
are returned to the Council.
Dr. Hawkes has endeavoured to keep a record of the amount of medical attention required during
the past year at Pentonville-road, and he states that out of the 1,016 cases recorded, 117 or 11.5 per cent,
were sent to the sick room, of this number 91 were isolated at the examination on admission, and 26
were taken ill during the period of detention. There was a daily average ot 4 under treatment or
observation, and the average period of confinement was 13 days. Four cases of infectious fever occurred,
and 16 were isolated as contacts. Fifty-five suffered from eye or skin troubles, due to dirt and neglect,
the remainder were made up of various ailments. Ir addition, 220 children were found, upon admission,
to be suffering from minor surgical ailments which needed daily attention, but were not so severe as to
necessitate treatment in bed. A large number of children also received medical attention for coughs
and colds, and the following figures show the assistance rendered bv the nurse:—
Surgical dressings 2,262
Baths for skin affections 344
Ears syringed for discharge 402
Noses syringed 374
Eyes treated 1,024
4,406
Dr. Hawkes also draws attention to the need for convalescent homes. He states that the normal
health of at least 25 per cent, of the children passing through the places of detention is below that of
the ordinary elementary school child and far below that of the average middle class child. The resistance
to disease is poor and the recuperative power acts slowly. Many ot them are found on admission
to be suffering from sores and abrasions of the skin, which in healthy children would heal rapidly, and
which in these children suppurate and require prolonged treatment before they are healed and even then
show a frequent tendency to break down again. Acute tubercular disease is rare. Many children,
however, are found with symptoms that point to an infection which, although smouldering at present
is always liable to break out unless steps are taken to stop it. Many of these children are discharged
by the magistrate because owing to conditions of health they are unfit tor training in an ordinary
industrial school, and although it is desirable that they should be sent away to the country or convalescent
homes, yet they are permitted to return to the unhygienic conditions of a home from which
they were probably taken away and charged on account of parental neglect.
Such are the conditions under which many of the children admitted to the places of detention have
been living, and hence it cannot be matter for surprise to find that about one-third have to pass
through the hands of the doctor and nurse for treatment of one kind or other.
In connection with the above statements attention may be drawn to a comparison between the
children admitted after they have been hopping, and those who have spent the same period in the streets.
The children who have been hopping and living in the open air and sleeping under canvas come in with
brown skins and greatly increased vitality, though often very verminous, while those who have remained
in London are dull and listless.
Dr. Hawkes draws attention to the need in places of detention of a separate playground shed
and arrangements for organised games. Most of the boys admitted have spent most of their spare
time in the streets and the enforced confinement and aimless desultory play in the absence of organised
games proves prejudicial to health.
Infectious Diseases.
The subjoined table shows the incidence of scarlet fever, diphtheria, and measles durin Or the
past eight years. The number of cases of whooping-cough reported as occurring among school
children during 1913 is also shown, but it is not possible to present similar figures for preceding
years. The incidence of scarlet fever and diphtheria upon persons of all ages is compared with the
number of school cases notified.
The accompanying diagrams (F and G) compare the weekly notifications of cases of scarlet
fever and diphtheria occurring amongst school children and all other persons during 1913.
Comparative
incidence—
Scarlet fever
diphtheria
and measles
23610
cc 2