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39
was complicated by pericardial adhesions, and 6 cases of congenital lesions were complicated by severe
associated lung disease of a fibroid character.
The proportion of cases of congenital to acquired heart disease is higher in this sample 65/240
than is shown in the Annual Report for 1912—
The same association of acquired heart disease with rheumatism and chorea was noted, but the
proportion of girls suffering from chorea to such a degree as to necessitate special school education is
found to be much higher than boys—4 to 1.
Mental
Deficiency
Act, 1913.
During the year there were referred by the local education authority to the local authority
under the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, 227 cases of which 63 were feeble-minded, 145 imbeciles, 18
idiots, and 1 was a moral imbecile.
Residential
institutions.
There are 8 residential and industrial schools, 6 residential special schools (2 for blind, 3 for
deaf, and 1 for mentally defective children), with a total accommodation for 1,897 residential and 252
day scholars. To each institution is allocated a medical officer and a dentist, whose duties have been
set out in previous reports. The dentists made 125 visits to the schools, conducted 2,096 examinations
and treated 858 cases.
During the year, 1,022 boys were admitted to Harrow Road place of detention, 1,755 to
Pentonville Road place of detention, and 955 girls and young boys to Ponton Road.
Dental
inspection
and treatment
of
children in
blind,
myope, deif
and hard of
hearing
classes.
The teeth of children attending the Council's blind, myope, deaf, and hard of hearing schools,
are examined and attended to by a dentist specially engaged for the purpose by the Council. The dentist
visits each day sohool twice a year, and the consent of the parents is obtained in all cases before children
receive treatment. Where accommodation permits, facilities for tooth-brush drill are also provided.
During the year the dentist made 2,253 examinations, and treated 834 cases, but some of the children
were treated more than once. Objections to inspection or treatment or both were received in 214 cases.
In addition to this work, the dentist also made 115 examinations in connection with children boarded
out from industrial schools, and treated 50 cases.
Epileptics.
During the year, 38 children were scheduled as suitable for admission to colonies. On the 31st
December, 1916, 69 children were attending certified schools for epileptics, and 28 were on the waiting
list for admission to special schools or colonies. The number of epileptic children out of school could
not be ascertained, but at the date of the last scheduling—viz., May, 1915, 115 children between the
ages of 7 and 16, and 4 between the ages of 3 and 7, were out of school. A register is now being
kept of all children found in the course of the examinations to be epileptic, and, on the 31st December,
1916, contained 490 names (234 boys and 256 girls).
Stammer ing.
513 children (375 boys and 138 girls) in the age groups, were found to suffer from stammering.
In the Annual Report for 1915, attention was drawn to the two experimental classes for adults provided
by the Council, and taught by teachers of the deaf by oral methods ; these classes were very successful
and were continued until the summer holidays, 1916. One of the classes is still open, but it is probable
that more effective work would be done if the problem were faced at an earlier age, and if one or two
visiting teachers were appointed to attend each district once or twice a week and give instruction to
such children as attend for it at an elementary school central to the district. The Council has also made
provision for the students in the training colleges to be instructed in the theory and practice of speech,
and the " speech clinic " is being continued by the authorities of St. Thomas's Hospital.