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Town Hall,
Ealing, W. 5.
June 28th, 1921.
To the Chairman and Members of the
Education Committee.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit my Annual Report for 1920 on the
work of the School Medical Department.
The general scope of the work remains the same as
in 1919, except that it has been extended to include a
better supervision of mentally and physically defective
children, of whom regular examinations are made and
complete records are kept. In various directions the
work has increased, but chiefly in dental and ophthalmic
treatment, and in the inspection of defective children
referred by the Head-teachers to the Inspection Clinic.
An idea of the increase of school medical work may
be obtained by the consideration of the attendances
made by children at the School Clinic in successive years.
In 1914 there were 4,989 attendances ; in 1915, 4,259 ;
in 1916, 7,218; in 1917, 9,315; in 1918, 8,827; in
1919, 10,316 ; and in 1920 no less than 12,267 attendances.
The two great needs in connection with school medical
work, as you are well aware, are the provision of a school
for mentally defective children, and an open-air school
for physically defective, anaemic, and poorly nourished
children. While the provision of these may not be
opportune at the present time they should not be lost
sight of as necessary developments whenever circumstances
are favourable.
Recently it has become a fashion to level at municipal
Services the general criticism of extravagance without