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72
paracentesis would probably cure the condition in the other child,
but the parents refuse to take the child to hospital. The other
3 are young children from very bad homes and the disease is probably
kept up by external otitis, chiefly due to neglect. They are
under constant supervision by the school nurses.
These results seem to us very encouraging and it is evident
that by intensive treatment, intelligently carried out in the early days
of the disease, chronic ear discharge can be practically banished.
Unfortunately 4 cases stand over from last year, but in
all instances the children come from particularly feckless homes
and all had ear discharge for over a year before they first attended
the clinic. We have succeeded in getting one of them into hospital
recently for a long period and another, a girl of thirteen has
also commenced hospital treatment. The other 2 cases have a
large perforation in the drumhead and might respond to ionisation
but at present the parents refuse treatment.
We are very grateful to the teaching staff who have given
us every support in our efforts to prevent chronic ear disease, with
its crippling sequelae of deafness and maybe tragic termination in
intra cranial disease, and to the school nurses for their constant
hard work in treating and following up these cases.
RETURN OF EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN.
Table 3 gives a return of all the exceptional children in the
district.
Multiple Defects.
One girl who suffers from slight epilepsy and birth palsy
attends an elementary school. A second girl who is blind and
mentally defective was discharged from the Swiss Cottage Blind
School and is now at home. One boy who is mentally deficient and
suffers from a deformity of the spine and chest attends the Acton
Special School, and the fourth case is a boy who is mentally deficient
and is also suffering from multiple tuberculosis of bones.
He is resident at the Stanmore Branch of the Royal National
Orthopaedic Hospital.
Blind Children.
One boy attends Asylum Rd. Blind School. Two boys attend
the Kingwood Rd. School for the partially blind, a boy and a girl
are at public elementary schools, and the last case, a boy who was
withdrawn by his parents from the Kingwood Rd. School, now
attends a local private school.