View report page

FOOT CLINICS
Question:—What facilities are there for looking after the feet of school
children in Barking?
Answer:—At all school medical inspections special attention is given to the
feet. Every child is examined bare-foot and any deformity or disease is noted
and arrangements made for treatment if necessary.
Special foot inspections are made from time to time at schools, usually in order
to detect plantar warts which may occur in
epidemics; especially in schools where barefoot
dancing is practised.
Minor Ailment Clinics are held every
morning and a fair proportion of cases so
examined are suffering from some foot trouble
or other.
More especially for feet there is, of
course, a Foot Clinic, in charge of a qualified Chiropodist, at the following
Clinics:—
Woodward Road.
Porters Avenue.
East Street.
Question:—What are you doing about warts?
Answer:—Warts may be divided into two classes; there are the unsightly
warts which we find usually on people's hands, and there are the plantar warts
which occur on the soles of the feet.
It is, however, of the plantar wart which I now particularly write.
This is sometimes mistaken for a corn; it is very painful and to all practical
purposes it is a corn, but studied scientifically it is quite different.
It is not a thickening of the horny layer of the skin: it is an overgrowth of the
deeper layer of the skin—layers of the skin which are well supplied with blood
vessels and nerves. A little table included
in this report shows the amount of work
we have done in this matter.
FOOT CLINICS
Number of cases treated j 629
Total Number of treatments
given 1,757
PLANTAR WARTS
Treated at Foot Clinics 223
Treated at Wart Clinic 321
Average Number of attendances
per case 3
While I am talking about this question
I may as well say that last year " I got into
hot water." To my mind plantar warts
are definitely infectious, but I know one of
my colleagues, a most eminent, distinguished
man, differs from this opinion and you will not be at all surprised to hear
" that doctors disagree." So convinced am I that plantar warts are infectious
that I think children's feet should be inspected before they are allowed to enter
Baths or engage in bare-foot dancing, and, of course, I am strongly opposed to any
question of socks and shoes being interchangeable.
15