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35
In June two new centres for stammerers from elementary schools were established
at, the Kennington-road and Tottenham-road schools, and in November the facilities
already provided for elementary school stammerers were extended to pupils from
secondary schools by the opening of centres at the North Western polytechnic (for
north London) and the " Henry Thornton " school (for south London). These
centres meet on Saturday mornings only, in order that the secondary school curriculum
may not be unduly interrupted. Thirty-four pupils have been enrolled at the two
last named centres since their inception. In November, another new centre at the
Salters-hill school was opened. This centre deals entirely with stammerers and speech
defect cases found among the children in the Council's residential schools and homes.
Treatment by relaxation makes further progress every year and its effects
become more noticeable. During the past year for example a boy of twelve was
completely cured in the space of six weeks. At another centre a training-ship boy
of 15£ who stammered after falling overboard was re-adjusted and cured, and has
now been passed for the Royal Navy. Relaxation has also had notable results in
children working for scholarships.
In order to help the children to practise regularly at home, books in which each
child could keep his own record were instituted at several of the centres. In a
certain number of cases books were mislaid, but the majority of the children have
kept a faithful and regular record of the practice carried out at home. These records
are in no sense competitive but enable each child to watch his own progress and the
maintenance of a good record becomes an incentive to practice.
In one or two instances a child has been so inspired by the effects in himself of
his own relaxation as to bring a stammering friend to the centre with the request
" will you please cure my pal, too ! "
At one centre one of the boys was found to have conjuring abilities. A " show "
was therefore staged at the end of the term which was attended by all three groups
and several outside visitors. The self-confidence acquired by this boy enabled him
to maintain his " patter " throughout without a trace of stammer.
Dr. Boome, the supervising medical officer of the day centres, has also visited
the centres for adult stammerers held in connection with the " Hugh Myddelton "
and Pages Walk evening institutes, where some of the pupils, whose cure was not
completed before leaving day school, were continuing their treatment.
Rheumatism scheme.
During 1935 certain changes were introduced in the organisation of the
rheumatism scheme, the general effect of which has been to ensure that the majority
of London children suffering from rheumatism may now be brought at the earliest
possible moment within the ambit of the scheme. This result has been obtained
partly by the provision of a larger number of beds in the rheumatism units (there are
now 630 beds for acute and sub-acute cases, and about 200 beds for convalescent
cases) and partly by the organisation of arrangements whereby children admitted to
the Council's general hospitals on account of rheumatism have been brought within
the general framework of the scheme and their transfer to an appropriate type of
rheumatism unit thus expedited. To this latter administrative change must be
attributed the greater proportion of the sudden increase in the number of nominations
for treatment under the scheme received during 1935 over the number recorded
for 1934. The actual number of nominations received from the medical superintendents
of the Council's general hospitals was 256, and since the new arrangements
have only been in force for six months it is to be expected that in a complete year
the rheumatism section will have to deal with from 500 to 600 additional nominations
from this source, and it may well be that even the present number of beds allocated
to the rheumatism scheme may have to be increased.
Of the 1,959 nominations received this year (see table 18) the voluntary hospitals
and the rheumatism supervisory centres were responsible for over 1,200. The