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at medical inspections are all satisfactorily carried out.' A report from Camberwell
probably voices the feeling of many care committees. ' We cannot close without
saying how good most of the mothers have been, they have turned up well to the
various medical inspections and have usually been far-seeing where their children
are concerned, and glad to co-operate with us in every way. Naturally, there have
been exceptions, and we have had our difficult times, but, on the whole, it has been
a happy, busy year, and one which has been intensely worth while.' "
Chronic Invalidity.
The school attendance department reports each month the names of all children
who have become chronic invalids, absence from school entirely on account of health
for three months and upwards being taken as the criterion of chronic invalidity.
Each year the number of sick children remaining on the list in the month of November
is analysed in the medical department, and the result gives, in effect, a census of
chronic invalidity.
The following tables show the number of children who had been out of school
for three months or more in November, 1929, and comparative figures for three
previous years. The numbers remain fairly constant, but it may be noticed that
the proportion of the total suffering from nervous disorders and anaemia and debility
has steadily declined.
The number of children absent on account of rheumatism and associated conditions,
including heart disease, forms a very high proportion of the whole (30'8 per
cent., and the figures bring out in a startling manner how largely this group of
conditions looms in the production of chronic ill-health in childhood (and, of course,
afterwards).
Amongst " other ailments," there were 141 children with lung disease other
than tuberculosis, 48 children with epilepsy, 37 with ear diseases, 24 with encephalitis
lethargica and 33 with infant paralysis.

Dr. Margaret M. Hogarth has investigated the chronic absences attributed to
rheumatic diseases from the point of view of institutional treatment. Out of 680
children, 257 were in-patients of some form of institution, viz., London general
hospitals, 65 ; poor law hospitals, 36 ; convalescent homes, 71 ; Metropolitan
Asylums Board country hospitals, 85.
Employment of School Children.
The applications during the year 1929 for medical certificates in connection
with the employment of school children out of school hours under the by-laws
number 4.155 of which only 45 were for girls, as compared with 4,518 in 1928.
The nature of the work for which certificates were granted was for boys (girls in
brackets)—Delivery of milk 220 (2) ; delivery of newspapers, 2,533 (31); carrying
17710 F