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the traces of persistent neglect. It is a pleasure to record that the mothers of the
children have responded so well to the persistent advice of the school nurses.
It is now very rare for the school doctor to find a child actually infested with
body vermin ; a condition which 3 to 4 per cent, of the elementary school children
exhibited in the early days of medical inspection. Only 80 children were found in
the statutory age groups to be affected by body vermin in 1936, out of 135,838
examined.
It is apropos here to quote Dr. Kerr's description in the first annual report
of the medical officer of the School Board for London in 1903, of numerous " children,
the back of whose heads was encrusted with a thick mass of scabs, exudation and
lice." We are happily far away now from those times.
The remarkable progress since the inauguration of the school medical service in
freeing the children of the elementary schools from parasitic infestation has been
accompanied by the raising of the general level of care, of tidiness and of happiness,
and forms by no means the least of the benefits which the school medical service
has brought to the schools, the teachers, and the population generally.
It is regrettable, however, that the control of infestation by lice and ringworm,
which has succeeded so well, had not its counterpart in the control of scabies, which
shows no progressive diminution such as has taken place in these other conditions.
When the children are undressed by the nurse preparatory to the medical
inspection, she enters on the medical record card a note of the condition of the clothing
and footwear. The results of this classification for 1935 and 1936 are given below.
Clothing and
footwear.

The position with regard to the adequacy of clothing and footgear is now very
satisfactory. In earlier years the percentages of children with insufficient clothing
and inadequate footgear were much higher.
In 1936 the percentage of children found by the school doctors in the statutory Dental
age groups with sound teeth was 68·5 compared with 66·6 in 1935, and is a consider· deeay·
able advance upon the figures of former years as shown in the following table :—

N.B.—Serious decay means four or more carious teeth requiring treatment.
b