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cent., compared with 696 children or 0.4 per cent, in 1929, and 868 in 1927. Thus
the number of children noted as hard of hearing at medical inspection has been
almost halved in the last three years. This result both in improvement of discharging
ears and in hearing capacity is undoubtedly due to the greater readiness to have
the tonsils and adenoids treated, which has been such a marked feature during the
last three or four years.
Defect of
vision.
In the examination of vision glasses are worn if the children normally use them.
In the 8.year.old group, 47.3 per cent, of boys and 48.2 per cent, of girls failed to
pass the vision test in 1930. In 1926, the figures were 51.9 per cent, and 54.7 per
cent, respectively, in 1927 they were 51.1 per cent, and 52.9 per cent., in 1928
46 .6 per cent, and 48.9 per cent., and in 1929 47.8 per cent, and 49.5 per cent. At
age 12, of boys 40.3 per cent, and of girls 44.9 per cent, failed to pass the vision
test, compared with 40.7 per cent, and 44.3 per cent, in 1929, and 41.2 per cent,
and 44.9 per cent, in 1928. While boys show some betterment at this age too, the
girls do not. The greater incidence of visual defect upon girls than upon boys has
always been a feature of the results of school medical inspection. While in the
younger girls there is a gradual approximation to the figures for boys, the difference
is apparently growing at the older age owing to improvement in the boys not shared
by the girls. Is this because the older girls must strain their eyes more at sewing
and other fine tasks, or is it because the older girls are less ready than the boys to
wear spectacles when needed ? Some indication of the answer to this question may
be shown later in this report (p. 11).
Heart
trouble and
anaemia.
Heart defect (functional or organic) was reported in 3,390 children or 2 per cent.
In 1928 and 1929 the percentage was 2.2 per cent. Older girls, as usual, present
signs of heart strain in excess of older boys (2.8 per cent, as compared with
2 per cent.).
Anaemia was recorded in 2,016 children, or 1.2 per cent. There has been a
very rapid decline during the last few years in children so suffering. In 1926 the figure
was 2.4 per cent., in 1927 2 per cent., in 1928 1.7 per cent., and in 1929 1.4 per cent.
Healthier ways of living and, in particular, increasing use of the open.air by girls as
well as boys, no doubt accounts for this improvement.
Defect of the
lungs.
Lung detects were noted in 3,835 children (2.3 per cent.). Here, again, there
has been a steady decline in incidence. In 1926, of the children examined, 3.4 per
cent, were found with lung trouble, but each year since then they have been fewer.
This, like the decline in anaemia, must be ascribed to healthier modes of life.
Entrant infants continue to contribute the largest quota to those with lung
defects, particularly the infant boys amongst whom 3.8 per cent, were noted, the
cases being chiefly bronchitis of rickety origin.
Tuberculosis.
It is barely possible now for a child to be found in school at a routine inspection
suffering from tuberculosis. Only 62 children were notified with pulmonary
tuberculosis and 47 with tuberculosis of other organs than the lungs. These numbers
were fewer than those of the previous year, which already had fallen far below the
proportion of one in a thousand.
Nervous
diseases.
Epilepsy was noted in 60 children, compared with 73 in 1929, and 97 in 1928;
chorea in 186 compared with 178 in 1929, and 204 in 1928, and paralysis in 76,
compared with 122 in 1929, and 125 in 1928.
Rickets.
The manifestations of rickets serious enough to be recorded, were found in
708 children or in 0.4 per cent. Here, again, is a measurable drop, as there were
1,097 (0.6 per cent.) recorded in 1929. The largest proportion of rickets is always
found in entrant boys, being half as much again as in entrant girls.
Other deformities.
Other deformities than those due to rickets were recorded in 2,017 children
(1.2 per cent.), the same proportion as in 1929. Spinal deformity accounted for
721 of the above, the older girls contributing a quota of 245, which was much larger
than that of any other group and twice as large as that of the boys of the same age.
Vaccination
records, 1930
In view of the prevalence in London of small.pox, the Education Committee
decided, during the year, that the school doctors should note in the records the
existence of vaccination marks (which they cannot avoid observing) when examining