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232
are found coming from quite satisfactory houses in which there
are adequate facilities for washing. Home care and family pride
are the dominant factors.
The School Clinics have had another busy and useful year,
the Minor Ailments Clinics showing an increase of nearly 2,000
in the attendances. The subsidiary Clinic opened in 1930 at 206,
Selhurst Road for Minor Ailments and Dental needs has again
proved its usefulness. The long distance, through and across
busy thoroughfares, that some schools are from the Lodge Road
premises will necessitate the establishment of one or more subsidiary
Clinics when financial conditions permit. There is
undoubted difficulty in obtaining the carrying out of necessary
treatment, more especially as concerns remedial exercises and
minor ailments, owing to the reluctance or inability of parents to
travel the distance to a central clinic.
A decrease of some importance has occurred in the number
of children operated on for the iemoval of Enlarged Tonsils and
Adenoids. This is the outcome of a deliberate policy in which
the school medical officers have joined. It is felt that there has
been, in the past, rather an indiscriminate removal of tonsils
which were enlarged but otherwise apparently healthy. Pursuing
the main object of the School Medical Service, the reasons for
tonsillar enlargement are being sought and the lines on which
prevention should be practised. Unfortunately, all the indications
point to the causes lying in that vital period of life between
2 and 4 years of age, a period during which at present, there are
the scantiest facilities both for supervision and treatment. The
tVpes of cases which are now being referred for operative
measures are detailed in the bodv of the report (page 45).
In connection with the School Dental Service, a new section
has been included in the report detailing the Orthodontic treatment
now being undertaken. The correction of dental irregularities,
besides having an assthetic value, is definitely a preventive
measure. Irregularly placed, badly erupted and crowded
teeth are prone to early decay; in addition, the absence of a
satisfactory "bite" in many of the cases prevents efficient mastication
and leads to digestive and nutritional troubles. Once again
it has been the ruling principle that it is better to endeavour to
prevent dental caries than to pull a tooth out because it is
unsaveable owing to decay. It is unfortunate that a proper
appreciation of this is not always evident on the parent's side.