London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Barking 1924

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Barking]

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The following table indicates the number of children re inspected during the year, and the number and percentage found to have obtained treatment.

Routine.Specials.Total.No. of children re-inspected and found to have been treated.
Boys.Girls.Boys.Girls.Boys.Girls.Total.Percentage
4414054013899221196.41746.38

The secret of successful treatment in the great majority of
instances is efficient following up on the part of the school nurse,
and, although parental obstinacy may account for a certain percentage
of cases not dealt with, the fact that the task in its present
proportions is beyond the capacity of two school nurses undoubtedly
accounts for the poverty of the above results, a difficulty
which it is hoped will be remedied in 1925, when a full time dental
nurse will be appointed who will be able to relieve the present
two school nurses of a considerable part of work in so far as the
following up of cases referred for dental treatment is concerned.
Where school nurses undertake all of the district work required
of the school mcdical service the allocation of 2,000 children per
nurse cannot be regarded as much of an underestimate, while
during the past year in Barking the number of children per school
nurse was 3.269.
CLEANLINESS.—Surveys under this heading are carried
out at (a) routine medical inspections, and (b) special inspections
conducted by the school nurses.
(a) At the former 376 children out of a total of 2,225, or
16.89 per cent., were found to have nits in their hair, while 7,
or 0.31 per cent. were found infested with head vermin. No
children were found with body vermin. In considering these
figures it must be remembered that some effort is generally made
by parents and others that children attending for medical inspection
are presented in a clean condition, so that a comparison
cannot fairly be made with results of surveys carried out by the