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28
Annual Report of the School
Medical Officer,
DENNIS H. GEFFEN,
M.D., B.S., D.P.H., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.
For the Year ending 31st December, 1941.
To the Chairman and Members of the
Enfield Education Committee.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit my Annual Report on the work of the School
Medical Department for the year ending 31st December, 1941.
The freedom from aerial bombardment during the course of
the year enabled the work of the department to revert to normality.
This was achieved as speedily as possible with the result that the
statistics for work carried out are comparable with those of pre-war
days.
The average attendance at school rose from a figure of 7,016
in 1940 to 8,745 in 1941, and this figure was steadily increasing
towards the end ol the year.
The time has come in the course of the war when one does
well to weigh up each activity of the School Medical Department
and assure oneself of its value, and to consider whether the curtailment
of any service is justifiable in order to effect economy in
time and man-power. One has to consider what are the particular
changes in the life of the school child, what are his reactions thereto,
and what special measures are required to meet them.
The chief change in 1941 has been in the diet of the school
child. As the Committee may know, the growing child is considered
to need a large proportion of proteins, the substances which
are found, in particular, in meat, fish, eggs and milk. With the
exception of milk, wartime diet has increasingly diminished the