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41
parents the necessity for providing adequate footwear. The parents' co-operation
has been excellent and the attendance of written-for old patients is usually about
85 per cent.
Dr. Gaisford remarks that 81 per cent, of the children attending were blondes, a
percentage which is definitely beyond the bounds of coincidence.
Dr. Wilfrid Sheldon points out that the number of children attending the
supervisory centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital during 1930 was 940. The centre
serves not only London but Greater London as well. A little more than one-half the
children attend from the London area proper. Regular attendance has been
satisfactory. Two hundred and fourteen children were convalesced during the year.
Dr. Sheldon groups the children with heart disease into four classes. Those
whose heart disease is acutely active are admitted to the wards of the hospital;
those whose heart condition is early and mild are sent to one of the various special
heart homes in the country (such as Lancing, West Wickham, Carshalton or Brentwood)
; those whose hearts have passed to such a condition that the main therapeutic
requirement is prolonged rest and institutional treatment are drafted to Dr. Sheldon's
ward at the Cheyne Hospital; finally those cases where the disease is no longer active
and the heart, though injured, has its action fully compensated are recommended for
admission to schools for the physically defective. Thirty-one children during the
year were thus recommended, and of these 30 have already been admitted to special
schools.
Great
Ormond
Street
Hospital.
Dr. Gerald Slot reports that this centre opened in May, 1930, and from May to
December 108 new cases attended. He finds the parents on the whole very willing
to take advice, but the greatest difficulty in early cases is to get them to realise the
importance of rest and longer sleep at night.
Hammersmith
supervisory
centre.
Dr. T. W. Preston, who has had charge of the centres at Downham, Wandsworth
and Putney, has supplied a combined detailed report upon the work of the three
centres. The report, which follows, gives an admirable idea of the work which the
supervisory centres are accomplishing.
Downham,
Wandsworth
and Putney
supervisory
centres.

The number of new cases seen at Downham and Wandsworth (Elizabeth Bullock
centre) is smaller than in 1929, but as a large proportion of the cases has to be kept
under continued observation, the total number of inspections and re-inspections is
greater.

* In addition. 15 were transferred to Putney centre; these constitute the 15 re-inspection cases
included in the Putney figures.