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unrestrained and reflect the kindly spirit in which the school is conducted. Official
recognition makes it possible to give the school the advantages of the Council's
provision for medical treatment and nursing care.
Open-Air Education.
Convalescent
camp
schools.
During 1924 an addition was made to the provision for short-stay periods
in the country by an arrangement with the Shaftesbury Society for the use of the
Russell Cotes Home at Parkstone, near Bournemouth, for 30 girls. The residential
open-air schools at Wanstead House, Margate, at Barham House, St. Leonard's,
and now at Russell Cotes Home, continue to be of inestimable assistance in improving
the physique of slightly debilitated London school girls. Between the child requiring
a fortnight's holiday in the country (who is catered for by many associations and
clubs) and the child requiring extended convalescence after serious illness (who is
catered for by the I.C.A.A.) there is an extensive class of children in London who
begin to flag and become listless, to grow pale and thin and to pine. The school
and hospital doctors constantly say to the mothers: "The child should go to the
country for a month or six weeks."
Prior to the Council's initiation of camp schools, it was this class for which there
no possibility in the great majority of instances of carrying out the physicians'
recommendations. The testimony of the local doctors at the schools and of the
school doctors in London is unanimous that a very great amount of good is being
done for this type of child, and that, where a proper selection has been made, the
improvement in health for most of them is lasting.
Dr. Elizabeth McVail has investigated the physical results of a visit of 30 girls
to the Russell Cotes Home from 24th July to 30th August. The girls ranged from
nine to thirteen years of age and were selected from the elementary schools for such
defects as anaemia, general debility and adenitis, several being tuberculous contacts.
The medical notes on the record cards indicate that great improvement resulted
from the holiday. The average increase in weight over the five weeks was 5 lbs.
7.78 oz., or 1 lb. 1.56 oz. a week, a most satisfactory result. Similar results are also
found in the children at Margate, who give practically identical increases on weighing
at the beginning and end of the stay.
Dr. McVail states "in the case of weakly pre-tuberculous children taken from
poor neighbourhoods in London to the seaside, where the period is devoted to dieting
and the whole regimen of health guided according to individual conditions, the
outcome is astonishingly good. Even in the period of five weeks it looks as if a
delicate child may accumulate a reserve of health and strength very helpful to its
physical powers of resistance. In the case of children in better home surroundings
the benefit of such a change of air is, of course, universally recognised."
Apart from the physical conditions, the mental and moral improvement is, of
course, remarkable, and is, in many instances, sufficient to change for the better the
whole tone and outlook of the child's subsequent life. I have no reservation in
my opinion that the short term period is a most economical and successful way
of improving the health and physique of the particular class of child in London in
whose interests it was devised.
Wanstead
House,
Margate.
Dr. Rowan McCombe, the medical officer of health of Margate, has supplied
me with the following report:—
"During the year about 500 children from the poorest parts of London
are sent to the Wanstead House School for a six weeks' holiday. The children,
generally speaking, are of very poor physique, badly nourished and very
languid upon arrival. They are all examined by the School Medical Officer the
following morning, and directions given to the school nurse for any medicinal
treatment which is required.