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an opportunity for the compilation of morbidity statistics
among schoolchildren and for the practice of health education.
These Clinics, also, form a channel of communication between
the school doctor and the general practitioner and is, therefore,
a valuable factor in the unification of the Health Service.
Reference is made to Table No. III (1) on page 69 in which
details are given of the conditions treated during the year at
these Clinics.
Work of the Ophthalmic Clinic during 1947.
I am indebted for this report to Dr. J. Smallpeice, the
Ophthalmist.
Attendances seemed good and parents for the most part
co-operative and helpful.
In most cases refractions have been undertaken after the
instillation by the parent of Ung. Atropin twice daily for a
week previously. This entails at least two visits, and, in
some cases a third visit for a post-mydriatic test, and in few
cases the patient has not returned until after being visited and
persuaded by the nurse. However, these cases have been few,
and I do not believe that homatropine and cocain instilled on
the day of refraction produces adequate cycloplegia in young
children. Certainly not in the case of squints.
One hundred and six children attended during 1947 who
had some form of strabismus or heteophoria. I have a list
of these children for submission to the county ophthalmologist.
Some of them have well-established amblyopia ex
anopsia, and are too old for us to hope for any benefit from
occlusion. In other cases parents have not co-operated but
these have been few. In other cases one has to weigh the
disability temporarily resulting from occlusion and the importance
of the state school examinations at eleven against
the possible future benefit. Many younger cases are being
satisfactorily occluded and the visual acuity has improved.
These cases report to me at monthly intervals without an
official appointment. They now await the establishment of a
local aorthoptic training centre, which is, I feel, badly needed.
Some of the squint cases I have shown to Mr. Lister at
Moorfields, or to Mrs. Phillipa Martin at the Western Ophthalmic
Hospital, and operations have been undertaken.
I had a second opinion at the Western on an interesting
and unusual case of periphlebitis of the left retinal vein in a
girl. Full investigations failed to find a focus, but the condition
is quiescent without serious diminution of visual acuity.
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