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90
County Borough of Croydon
ANNUAL REPORT
of the
SCHOOL MEDICAL OFFICER
For the Year ending December 31st, 1949.
To the Chairman and Members of the Education Committee.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present for your consideration the
Annual Report of the School Medical Officer for the year ending
December 31st, 1949.
During the year under review it was possible to commence
the scheme approved by the Committee and the Ministry of
Education of providing four routine medical examinations during
the period of normal school attendance at Corporation maintained
schools. It is interesting to recall that in the immediate pre-war
years the system of routine medical examinations was subjected
to much criticism by School Medical Officers. It was suggested
that medical scrutiny of the whole school population in order to
detect a minority of defective children was outdated and an
uneconomic employment of medical personnel. If routine school
medical inspections are regarded solely as a method of detecting
gross physical defects these criticisms are justified, and it was
perhaps for this reason that the school medical services during
the war were allowed to offset the effects of staff reductions by
curtailing routine examinations. In my experience, it was the
parents who in pre-war years asked for the continuation of such
examinations, and now request their re-introduotion and