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89
The London Central Spectacles Committee drew attention to the dangers of
girls sewing in poor light and the Elementary Education Committee in December,
1925, directed that special attention should be drawn to the above regulation and
that the conditions should be borne in mind when time tables are approved.
The attention drawn in last year's report to the excessive incidence of visual
defect amongst the older Jewish boys has resulted in definite action being taken.
The names of pupils attending the Fairclough and Dempsey-street Myope schools
were supplied to the Jewish Health Organisation of Great Britain, who submitted
recommendations to the Talmud Torah Trust. At the request of the latter body
four ophthalmic surgeons were nominated to supervise the arrangements to be made.
These officers will see that the requirements of the health authorities are agreed to,
and that children with poor eyesight are relieved from strain; further, recommendations
have been made for the complete hygienic oversight of the Talmud Torahs.
Heart defect.and
anromia.
Special consideration is given elsewhere in the report to the question of the 1
rheumatic child. Here, only those heart defects found amongst the apparently 1
normal children, who are examined in the age groups, are dealt with. Of these
5,364 were recorded as suffering from heart defects, either functional or organic.
It is not an easy thing in a noisy school for the inspector to make a definite diagnosis
between functional and organic disease. Moreover, the distinctions between the
two conditions have become more blurred with the advance of knowledge, and it is
recognised that many conditions which used to be regarded as " functional" are
indeed true organic defects, although the heart muscle rather than the valvular
appendages is chiefly involved.
The percentage of heart defect found this year is 2.71, a slight improvement
upon 1924, when the percentage was 2.79.
At the age 8, heart defect falls equally upon the two sexes (boys 2.8 per cent.,
girls 2.9 per cent.).
At the age 12, there is a very definite excess upon girls (boys 2.6 per cent.,
girls 3.8 per cent.).
This excess is recorded year after year and shows that there is some influence
acting upon girls between the years of 8 and 12 which does not act upon boys.
Greater confinement to the house and the performance of household work on the
part of girls has been put forward as the explanation, and it may well be the true one,
as there is no doubt that girls have to take a large share in the daily domestic work
of the house, as they approach the school-leaving age, which the boys generally
manage to escape. Similarly, it will be seen that deformities of the spine and feet
are more common in girls of this age than in their brothers, and almost certainly
for the same reason.
Anaemia was recorded in 5,438 children or 2.75 per cent., a slight improvement
upon 1924, when 2.99 per cent. of children were found with anaemia. It is found
that in years of little sunshine there is more anaemia amongst the children than in
sunny years. How far artificial sunshine could take the place of natural sunshine
cannot as yet be said, but all indications show that sunshine has a very potent effect
upon health and the more advantage that is taken of natural sunshine when it is
nresent the better.
Lung
disease.
7,713 children were recorded as having lung symptoms other than tuberculosis;
this is 3.9 per cent. of those inspected in the routine examinations. The percentage
in the previous year was 3.37. The increase, however, is mainly owing to altered
age incidence, as the bulk of non-tuberculous lung trouble found amongst elementary
school children consists in rickety bronchitis from which entrant infants so often
suffer. Six per cent. of entrant infants are found with some symptoms of
bronchitis as against 3.4 per cent. of 8-year-old children and 1.7 per cent. of
12-year-olds. At each age boys suffer slightly more often than girls.
Only about one in a thousand children in the elementary schools is detected at
Tuberculosis.