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69
SECONDARY SCHOOLS.
By an arrangement with the Middlesex Education Committee,
the Ealing School Medical Staff carries out medical inspection
at the Secondary Schools for boys and girls. This arrangement
is very suitable as most of the boys and girls attending these schools
come from Public Elementary Schools where they have already
been under medical supervision.
BLIND, DEAF, DEFECTIVE AND EPILEPTIC CHILDREN.
Specially defective children are ascertained through the
School Enquiry Officers, who report all such cases not attending
school, through the head-teachers who are expected to notify all
defective children immediately on admission to school, through the
vSchool Nurses as a result of visiting homes and through the Health
Visitors who discover the defective children before they are of
school age on being brought to the Health Centres by their mothers.
In those ways a fairly complete list of all specially defective children
can be kept.
Blind and deaf children of school age whenever they are
discovered are sent to Special Residential Schools. Three blind
girls and five blind boys were being maintained at Certified Schools
for the Blind at the end of the year. Five girls and five boys,
suffering from myopia to such an extent as to be considered partially
blind, attended public elementary schools under special supervision.
The partially blind children undergo regular medical
examination at intervals of three months or oftener depending on
their actual condition as determined by the Medical Officer. The
teachers and parents receive specific instructions regarding the care
and supervision of those children, particularly as to the avoidance
of excessive exercise or severe physical exertion which might
adversely affect the condition of the eyes and as to the kind of visual
work which the eyes may be called upon to perform either in the
school or in the home.
Ten deaf-mutes, three boys and seven girls, were maintained
at Special Residential Schools.
One boy suffering from very severe epilepsy was kept at home.
The case is really one for hospital treatment, but the parents
insist on his being treated at home. Eight children, four boys and