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75
"One important recommendation of the Committee, however,
was that the clinical side of school ophthalmic work should be
under the care of an ophthalmic surgeon. For this and other
reasons it appears essential that such a surgeon should be appointed
in Haling with as little delay as possible.
"While the general proportion of the figures remains much
the same, there is, this year, a very considerable increase in the
number of children who were found, on examination, to require
no spectacles. The percentage of such children was, in 1931,
1932 and 1933, 7.1, 9.8 and 7.4 respectively, but in 1934 it rose
to 16.0%, representing 162 children. These cases have, therefore,
been separately analysed in Tables II and III.
In the past it has been unusual for children other than
those with high myopic or some other progressive condition to
be tested more often than every eighteen months. During 1934,
as explained above, certain modifications of organisation have made
it possible for almost all children to be re-inspected annually,
or more frequently if necessary. An endeavour is now being made
to re-test after six months those children for whom
no prescription has been made and seven of those dealt with in
1934 were so re-tested, the original findings being confirmed.
These children, since two complete tests were carried out on them,
are entered as both new and old cases, thus producing an apparent
increase in the total.
"In Table II, it will be seen that 23 children who had not
previously been found emmetropic and 16 who had been so found
were being tested less than 18 months after their last preceding
test. It is, therefore, obvious that a large proportion of these
39 children wouid not have been included in the figures for 1934
if it had not been for the improved methods of dealing with cases,
and, therefore, this portion of the increase over the 1931-33 figures,
is more apparent than real. Emmetropia, the "normal" condition
of the eye, is, actually, an abnormal condition in children.
The vast majority of children below the age of eight or nine are
hypermetropic and it is not uncommon for a child to show steadily
decreasing hypermetropia up to puberty, when the refraction
becomes emmetropic or normal.