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141
Changes in Physical Fitness Resulting From School Medical Work.
An analysis of the prevalence of various types of physical
defects during the five years in question was found to be of little
value, partly because of the shortness of the period, but chiefly
because of the unavoidable differences in the personal equation
resulting from changes in medical staff.
It is in general not possible to put forward definite statistical
proof of a diminution in the prevalence of various physical defects
as a result of school medcal work, though it is obvious that the
cure of defects already existing and found during medical inspection
can result in nothing but good, and itself prevents the subsequent
occurrence of graver and more lasting disabilities. The fundamental
fact to be borne in mind, in assessing the value of the
preventive aspect of school medical work, is that many of the more
glaring disabilities, which would chiefly appeal as suitable
standards for measuring progress in prevention, have in fact
developed before the child reaches school age, so that prevention,
except of further growth of the defect, is impossible to the school
medical service as such. The child has to be dealt with before he
reaches school. Herein lies the importance of the step taken in 1924
by the Education Committee, in conjunction with the Public Health
Committee, in co-ordinating the work of the School Nurse with that
of the Infant and Child Health Visitor, so that now each Health
Visitor, as well as each Medical Officer, is concerned in the supervision
of the health of the child from infancy onward, without a
break at the age of admission to school.
It is possible, however, to use another test of improving
physical fitness, viz., the heights and weights of school children.
A member of the Education Committee was good enough to draw
my attention to the fact that Dr. Meredith Richards, in his report
for 1905 as School Medical Officer, set out the " median " heights
and weights of groups of children attending the Oval Road and the
Princess Road Schools, the latter receiving some of the poorest
children in the borough, and the former school dealing with a more
middle-class type of child. I have compared these records below
with those similarly ascertained for the same schools for 1924 and
1925 separately. The type of child admitted to these schools does
not appear to have changed materially in the interval. Allowing
for the unavoidable errors and variations inherent in small
numbers, the figures show a clear general increase both in height
and in weight, among both boys and girls, in these two schools
when the present records are compared with those of twenty years
ago. No doubt a large number of factors are concerned in this
improvement; but the school medical service—associating with this
the work of teachers, attendance officers and others—with its steady
education of the individual parent in matters promoting the health
of the school child, can fairly claim a place of honour among the
agencies instrumental in the change.