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31
Personal hygiene scheme
For the purpose of assisting at medical inspections, each school nurse is allocated
to a group of schools. Each school in the group is also visited by the school nurse
in accordance with a rota, in order that she can carry out the inspection of the personal
hygiene of the children. At each rota visit, all the children in the school are so inspected
; each school is visited at least once a term, the schools where conditions are
below normal receiving two or more such rota visits each term. Thus every child is
seen at least three times a year.
In 1938, 1,463,634 examinations of children were made at these rota visits.
In 106,299 cases the child was noted as verminous, i.e., in 7.3 per cent, of the examinations,
compared with 7.9 for 1937 and 8.1 for 1936.
In accordance with the desire of the Board of Education, arrangements were
made in 1933, by means of a small index card, to determine the number of individual
children found unclean during the year, thus eliminating the possibility of counting
separately the second or third record of uncleanliness in respect of any one child.
The number of individual children so recorded was 65,292 (compared with 82,357
in 1937, and 85,300 in 1936), figures which represent all those children who were
noted to be infested with live vermin or their ova. About 47 per cent, of the cases
in which verminous conditions were recorded at the rota visits were stated to be
infested, at the time of examination, with nits only.
There are 10 Council centres for cleansing, 22 Borough Council centres, and 9
centres organised by voluntary committees; but, as the last named are limited to head
cleansing, these are not equipped with sterilisers or baths. An additional Borough
Council centre, Finsbury, was opened in December, one head cleansing centre at Downham
was closed in July, and an additional head cleansing centre was opened in January
in connection with the Hoxton treatment centre.
The following particulars for 1937 and 1938 are in respect of the cleansing
scheme operated from the Council's and Borough Councils' centres (as distinct from
the " head " cleansing centres):—
1937 1938
Number of advice cards issued to parents from bathing centres 82,357 88,240
Number of children attending voluntarily at bathing centres after
advice cards 42,899 47,736
Number of statutory notices served in accordance with section 87
of the Education Act, 1921 22,604 22,389
Number attending bathing centres after statutory notices:—
(а) voluntarily 4,279 5,047
(б) compulsorily 16,514 15,399
Number of cases in which police court proceedings were taken 250 195
At the head cleansing centres, 22,363 children attended during the year compared
with 20,362 in 1937.
The figures in the above tabular statement are obtained from records kept on a
terminal basis at each of the centres, and, as is the case with the rota inspection figures,
a child may be recorded more than once in the same year. The individual record
cards at the centres show that in 1938 a total of 63,975 children attended the bathing
and head-cleansing centres, compared with 63,451 in 1937 and 66,464 in 1936. Not
all these children were, however, referred under various stages of the cleansing scheme,
but a certain number attended voluntarily before their departure for residential
schools, country holidays, etc., or at the request of parents, teachers and others.
Children taken for compulsory cleansing are either accompanied to the centre
by the school nurse or, in the case of outlying schools, taken by ambulances.
In 1938,11,458 children were conveyed in the ambulances.
Children suffering from scabies and impetigo are treated at the bathing centres.
The total of such cases was 14,292 for the year, a considerable increase on the number
for the previous year (10,962).
The co-operation of the local sanitary authorities in respect of simultaneous
disinfection of homes is gratefully acknowledged.
The high incidence of scabies which shows still further increase gives cause for
concern. The difficulties in dealing with this scourge are great. While school
children can be, and are, inspected, the disease, which is very contagious, affects
Scabies and
impetigo