London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

London County Council 1932

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]

This page requires JavaScript

The following table shows the numbers inspected in each group, and their classification according to nutrition:—

Age Group.Number inspected.Classification.
(1)(2)(3)(4)
Entrants, boys29,1836,17221,5211,4846
,, girls29,1626,67021,3661,1197
8-year group, boys26,8584,18420,9651,7045
,, ,, girls26,2745,14819,8071,3163
12-year group, boys34,9096,78026,3831,7433
,, ,, girls34,5197,52825,4811,5055
Total180,90536,482135,5238,87129

Taking categories 3 and 4 together, the percentages of each sex found with subnormal nutrition in each of the code age groups, compared with similar percentages in previous years, are given in the following table:—

Age Group.1920.1925.1930.1931.1932.
Entrant boys6.45.74.44.45.1
girls5.9503.53.63.8
8-year-old boys9.08.56.36.66.3
girls7.87.2515.05.0
12-year-old boys6.36.5515.25.0
girls5.66.34.54.24.3
All above age groups6.76.34.84.84.9

The combined figures reveal that in the year 1932 there were one in a thousand
more children found during the code age group inspections to be subnormal than in
1931 and 1930. This slight deterioration is due to the larger proportion of the entrant
infants (principally boys) who were found to be subnormal. In considering the condition
of the new entrants it should be remarked that the infant population had just
been subjected to the effects of a wide-spread epidemic of measles and these
effects fell almost entirely upon the children of five years old and younger.
The disparity between the figures for infant boys and for infant girls may be
ascribed to the greater vulnerability to adverse influences of the males. This is shown
in the fact that the number of boys is always greater than the number of girls born,
yet fewer of the boy babies survive the perils of infancy, so that the female population
is in the end considerably in excess of the male.
The children in the 8-year and 12-year old groups, taking boys and girls together,
were found, in 1932, in better condition than in 1931, for those found subnormal
in these two age groups were actually one per thousand less in 1932 than in the
previous year. These figures bear out the experience of the school medical service
that, while at school, children under stress are promptly noticed and means taken
to prevent ill-nourishment.
The means available for coping with those subnormal in nutrition include school
feeding, the provision of milk and cod liver oil on the advice of the school doctors,
the transference to day open air school or residential camp school, or the arrangement
of convalescence through voluntary bodies or in the Council's own institutions, etc.
Much was done in the early spring in the way of arranging for convalescence for
the infants who had suffered from measles, through a special arrangement with the
Invalid Children's Aid Association. Apart from the exceptional incidence of subnormal
conditions upon the entrant children it is found that the condition of the
children generally not only has not deteriorated but has even slightly improved.
Attention was called during the year to an investigation made by Dr. H. H.
Bashford, of the Headquarters Medical Department of the Post Office.