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105
County Borough of Croydon
ANNUAL REPORT
of the
PRINCIPAL SCHOOL MEDICAL OFFICER
For the Year ending December 31st, 1953.
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 Principal School Medical Officer for the
year ending December 31st, 1953.
The anticipated increase in the school population was met by
a special effort to supply the facilities available only through the
School Health Service. Thus record numbers of routine school
medical inspections were carried out and it was possible to include
the permissive examinations of the 4th age group for almost the
whole of the year.
The fact that schools contained an unusually large number
of five-year-old entrants raised the possibility of an increased
incidence of infectious diseases. These fears were partly realised,
but serious illnesses, e.g., poliomyelitis, were not prevalent. At
one school, scarlet fever necessitated special control measures. I
have previously noted that the mildness of present day scarlet
fever leads to its being overlooked, so that adequate exclusion is
sometimes omitted. Sonne dysentery was also encountered but
not to an extent which raised special difficulties. The detection
of a teacher suffering from infectious pulmonary tuberculosis
required skin testing and X-raying of all the children in one
school. None was found suffering from active tuberculosis.