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controlled by the Central Public Health and Public Assistance Committees. Not
all the institutions of the Education Committee were considered suitable for " nursery"
accommodation, and, as it was estimated that there were about 280 such
healthy infants, after some allowance had been made for children at voluntary
institutions, etc., it was computed that there was a deficiency of about 65 places
in the education nurseries. Structural alterations were accordingly authorised
at the Shirley residential school and Leytonstone children's home to cover this
deficiency. These two institutions, together with nurseries at Cumberlow Lodge,
Hornchurch, and Hutton, will provide 235 cots for the reception of healthy separated
children between the ages of ½ and 3 years. About 170 of these children have already
been accommodated in the existing nurseries under the control of the Education
Committee, and Dr. Hogarth comments on the remarkably rapid increase in their
rate of growth and general development and on the obvious improvement in their
appearance, and states that the removal of these older children has made possible
more suitable arrangements for the younger group of children in the nurseries under
the control of the other two committees concerned.
Chronic invalidity.
The school attendance department reports each month the names of children
who have been absent from school for three months on account of illness. Each year
the cases on the list for the month of November is analysed and the result gives an
index of the causes of chronic invalidity.
The following table shows the number of children reported to have been out of
school for more than three months in November, 1931, and comparative figures for
the three preceding years. There is a considerable drop in the total figures which
is possibly due to the removal from the school rolls of the names of children who have
been absent for long periods and are receiving institutional treatment, and in many
cases, indeed, instruction at the hospital school.
The number of children absent on account of rheumatism, chorea and heart
disease still forms a very high proportion of the total and proves how largely this
group of diseases is responsible for ill-health in childhood, especially among girls,
who account for nearly twice as many cases as boys. Nervous disorders (including
41 cases of epilepsy) show a higher proportion than last year, though the actual
number of cases is less. Ringworm, formerly a chief cause of prolonged absence
from school, accounts for only 9 cases, compared with 129 in 1919. Since the introduction
of X-ray treatment for ringworm, the average length of absence has steadily
declined and consequent upon the shorter period of infectivity the danger of the spread
of the disease has likewise diminished.
Among other ailments, respiratory diseases, other than tuberculosis, accounted
for 149 cases, and ear disease for 38.