View report page

ASTHMA
Question:—What is being done to help asthmatic children ?
Answer:—Most of the children with asthma are under their private doctor
or attending a hospital for advice and treatment. While no cure can be guaranteed
in this distressing complaint a good deal to afford relief can be done in the way of
treatment and, of course, some patients get better by themselves.
Our Physiotherapy Department at the Manor Clinic conducts special classes
for breathing exercises and also, where appropriate,
gives much relief by massage, electrical treatment,
and otherwise.
ASTHMA
Number of cases attending
Faircross Special
School 11
Apart from measures to improve the general
health, breathing exercises are undoubtedly the
best single measure of affording relief. Not only do
they improve the breathing as such and aid in
preventing an attack, but by reducing the expanded shape of the chest they allow
the lung within to relax and recover.
Those children whose attacks or condition prevent them from benefiting fully
from an ordinary school are taken into Faircross Open Air School for varying
periods, or sent away for Convalescence when necessary.
OPEN-AIR EDUCATION
Question:—If Open Air Schools are good for delicate children, would
they also be good for normal children ?
Answer:—I am told by people who grudgingly admit that there ought to be
maximum fresh air, that this fresh air should be so limited that the children, and the
teachers too, should never feel cold.
Now our experience of real open air is that this fear of being cold is unwarranted.
Children, after all, are young animals and if they get sufficient exercise and movement,
then when they sit down they do not feel cold—at least not for a time—and
after this time they should be allowed to get up for still more exercise and movement.
As a matter of fact children are more likely to feel cold being cooped up in a
room moderately warm than when they lead more natural lives in a room the
actual temperature of which is relatively low.
What we have to find is a proper balance between exercise on the one hand and
formal classwork on the other. I want to see a curriculum so devised that the
children will have an opportunity of moving about when they want to and sitting
down when they want to, and if this were achieved we should find that much had
been done towards the "bogey" that, of necessity, proper ventilation means that
the child will be too cold.
The answer to the question, therefore, is "Yes."
24