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756 children at routine inspections were referred for treatment in 1926 as
against 783 in 1925. It appears, therefore, that the increase in the numbers noted
is due to the doctors notifying to a greater extent the slighter degrees of enlargement.
51.9 per cent. of 8-year-old boys and 54.7 per cent. of 8-year-old girls failed
to pass the test for normal vision. While the figure for girls is the same as last
year's, the boys show a distinct improvement. In the 12-year-old group 42.2 per
cent. of boys and 46.3 per cent. of girls failed. Here the percentage closely approximates
to that of last year. The proportion of children with more serious defect
(V =6/12 or worse) was as follows:—8-year-old boys 18 per cent., girls 18.5 per cent;
12-year-old boys 19.9 per cent; girls 21.5 per cent.
Owing to the excessive amount of visual defect amongst Jewish boys, arrangements
were made with the Jewish Health Organisation of Great Britain for their better
supervision, particularly in regard to the Jewish classes in the evenings. A closer
co-operation has now been effected and the names of Jewish children attending
myope schools, together with those of other children with the more serious degrees
of defective vision, are now being regularly transmitted to the Jewish Health Organisation
in order that the special regime insisted upon during compulsory school hours
may so far as is possible be followed during the hours of voluntary study at other
times
Visual
defects.
4,783 or 2.6 per cent. of the children inspected were reported to have heart
defects, functional or organic. Last year 2.71 per cent. were reported. The older
girls continue to show the greatest amount of heart strain (3.4 per cent.)
Anaemia was reported in 4,338 children or 2.4 per cent.; this compares favourably
with the previous vear when 2.75 per cent. were recorded as anæmic.
Heart defects
and anaemia.
6,236 children or 3.4 per cent. were recorded with lung affections other than
tuberculosis. It is the entrant infants who suffer by far the most highly. The
condition is almost always bronchitic and is associated in all probability with mild
degrees of rickets. The fact that entrant boys are more prone to bronchitis than
the entrant girls supports this view. The incidence was slightly less than in 1925.
5.7 per cent. of entrant boys were bronchitic as against 2.9 per cent. of 8-year-old
and 1.7 per cent. of 12-year-old boys.
Lung disease.
Pulmonary tuberculosis was detected in only 102 children (0.1 per cent.) and
other forms of tuberculosis in 126 children. It is thus now quite rare to find
tuberculosis at routine medical inspection in school. It is satisfactory to note that
children suffering from more serious diseases such as tuberculosis are detected and
dealt with as they arise and do not remain overlooked in school, waiting until the time
comes for their routine inspections in the age groups.
Tuberculosis.
106 children were found to be epileptic, 191 children were found with signs
of chorea, and "paralysis" (mostly old cases of poliomyelitis) was found in 173
children. The cases of infantile paralysis were found chiefly amongst the entrant
infants.
Nervous
diseases.
There has been year by year a rapid diminution in the number of children
reported with rickets. 1,118 were reported in 1926, the figures being for the previous
three years: 1,320 in 1925, 1,786 in 1924, and 1,975 in 1923.
Naturally most cases are reported in entrants, and it is the entrant boys that
suffer most severely. During the year the work of Dr. M'Gonigle, in Durham, has
attracted attention. He has shown that when the signs of old rickets are especially
sought there are at all ages many more children than is commonly supposed in
whom it can be decided that some degree of rickets has been suffered. Applying
his methods in London it is found that the remains of the milder degrees of rickets
can be detected in a much larger proportion of children than are reported by the
school doctors at medical inspections, although the incidence of rickets in London
is far less than in Durham.
There is no particular point in searching for and recording M'Gonigle's signs in
Deformities.