View report page

62
the infectious diseases of childhood are also deserving of study and will be further
referred to later in this report.
Medical
Inspection
children in the three statutory age groups were examined by the school
doctors in elementary schools, and 72,329 of them were found to be suffering from
one or more defects. This is a smaller proportion than ever before, since the present
standard of examination was instituted, and is a matter for congratulation. 1,395
children in the prescribed age groups were seen in special schools, and 39,331
children not in the age groups were specially examined. In addition the school
medical staff inspected 4,923 candidates for scholarship awards and 24,379 children
in connection with their specific defects, in special schools. A detailed analysis
of results bv Dr. C. J. Thomas is eiven on oases 62 to 67.
Medical
treatment.
The number of children treated under the arrangements made by the Council
was 218,794 as compared with 193,854 in 1922. The difference in the two years
is almost entirely accounted for by the improved attendance for dental and minor
ailment treatment. It may be noted in connection with the examination for visual
defect that 90.5 per cent of the children needing spectacles obtained them, the
best result vet recorded.
Re-inspections.
The number of re-inspections was 188,348. The combined results of first and
second re-inspections showed that 76.8 per cent. of the children found defective had
been dealt with.
Personal
hygiene.
The cleansing scheme was continued during the year and 2,052,904 examinations
were made at rota visits by the school nurses. The percentage of verminous
conditions found, including those of all degrees, was 18.1, which is lower than in
any previous year. The number of scabies cases treated, too, shows a marked
diminution-
Infectious
diseases.
Scarlet fever and diphtheria showed marked decline following upon the two
years, 1921 and 1922, of high prevalence. The notifications of scarlet fever in
1923 were 10,047 as compared with 17,181 in the preceding year ; those of diphtheria
were 10,301 as compared with 15,247. It will be observed that in 1923, as has
happened before in London, the notifications of diphtheria actually exceeded those
of scarlet fever. Both in 1923 and the two preceding years London suffered disproportionately
from diphtheria as compared with the rest of England and Wales.
The higher incidence in London was more marked as regards cases than deaths.
Influenza was less prevalent than in 1922, but was becoming more common
at the close of the year. Measles which had been at a low ebb was also becoming
more prevalent in the later weeks of 1923.
Measles is a disease the prevalence of which can be appreciably affected by a
carefully devised scheme of prevention—some notes are given on p. 94 on the working
of such a scheme in three recent outbreaks in London. Charts showing measles,
whooping cough, and scarlet fever prevalences are given on pages 98, 99, and 90, and
the behaviour of diphtheria since 1891 in London is commented upon on p. 93, where
reference is made to the statistics relating to certain other large aggregations of
population. The experience of the last 30 years, in fact, shows that the school
organisation in London has been largely instrumental in putting a check upon
prevalence of epidemics of diseases affecting children of school age.
Routine
inspection;.
Results of medical inspection.
Routine inspections were limited to those age-groups prescribed by the Board
of Education. 68,916 infants were seen on entry to school, 64,593 children in
elementary schools on reaching the age of 8 and 63,818 in their thirteenth year,
giving a total of 197,327 children inspected compared with 199,812 in the previous
year. They were, in each age-group, pretty evenly divided between boys and
girls.
As children were no longer seen in the term before they left school, the twelveyear-old
children were examined late in the year in order to bring their last