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109
mother was evidently ignorant, as it would have purchased several
complete outfits. It is hoped that this parent will appreciate
the results of medical inspection.
It would be well if the large stores which cater for the needs
of the 'working classes would stock school children's garments
of a more hygienic type than those which are now supplied. The
expense need not be greater, it is only a question of altered pattern,
but at present the only firms sufficiently enlightened in this
direction provide materials whose cost is beyond the reach of
the working-class income.
Many of the mothers are really anxious to do the best by
their children, but both ways and means must be made very
simple before they are willing to accept innovations. As more
instruction is given in hygiene and home management to the
older girls while at school, we may hope that increased knowledge
in the ways of physiological righteousness will filter through
to the homes.
Hindrances to Treatment.
In the process of giving advice to parents who are present
during the medical inspection of their children with reference to
the treatment of simple ailments, we are often confronted with a
fixed belief in some remedy which has been in use through several
' generations of a family, and treatment of this kind is persisted in to
the exclusion of more scientific remedies.
In some cases the principle underlying the treatment is quite
obscure, but in others it is interesting to sift out the grain of truth
at the foundation of the wide-spread belief in a remedy. For
instance, every School Medical Officer will have met with cases of
ringworm to which ink has been freely applied with no result in
checking the spread of the ringworm. It is possible that in former
days the ingredients of ink were more caustic in character, and thus
genuine cures may have resulted. The present variety of ink merely
serves as a danger-signal, and this function is still better discharged
by the use of iodine, which has the advantage of also being curative.