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in that respect. It also does not interfere with education. No child is discharged
from Faircross Special School unless for the preceding six months the eyes have
been free from all inflammation. Each child is subsequently examined at the
clinic once every three months.
There remains short sight or myopia as it is called. This is in its worst degrees
a crippling disease and causes much disability. It begins in childhood and is
sometimes hereditary. Though the cause of myopia is unknown, some conditions
seem to produce a gradual increase in severity. These indicate the line of treatment.
Thus, excessive reading, knitting and other close work are deleterious to myopes.
This year, I have examined 226 cases of short sight, and the parents of those
children have been asked how often the child reads. The answer has nearly always
been "The child is always reading." So invariable has been the reply that it seems
desirable that every school child who is always reading should be discouraged from
too much study.
The method adopted for dealing with myopia is first the provision of suitable
glasses. A letter is then sent to the parent giving advice as to limiting the amount
of close work out of school, and to encourage open-air pursuits. At the same time
the Head Teacher is informed. Each case is re-examined at the Clinics—usually
every six months—so that myopic children are under supervision throughout their
whole school career. Myopia, however, is relatively common and would not justify
interference with schooling in the average case of mild degree, so in the first instance
such children take the ordinary school curriculum. If it is found that the myopia
is increasing quickly, a scheme of what is called "easy schooling" is instituted.
This involves the curtailment of the amount of reading, etc. As this is usually
sufficient it is in only a small percentage of cases that "special schooling" is found
necessary.
A reference to Table II on page 173 brings out some interesting facts. In
the first place the success of giving ordinary education to myopic children has been
established, for out of 226 cases only 37 increased in severity and only four were of
such degree that "special schooling" was necessary. When increase in short-sight
occurs it is usually within six months. This might at first suggest that the
provision of glasses, the special letters and other measures had not sufficed but it
must be remembered that no statistics are available of children when no treatment
has been undertaken. It is thus a deduction more apparent than real and the large
numbers of myopes whose condition has remained stationary lends support to this
view. It is frequently asked if the child is better say after twelve months. Of course,
there is no question of this because myopia is a permanent condition and the
aim of all control methods must be to prevent the short sight increasing. I believe
that this is possible in the majority of cases, but it necessitates co-operation on the
part of the children themselves, the parents and the educational authorities.