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SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
To: The Worshipful The Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of Haringey
I have the honour to present the third Annual Report of the School Health Service for the year 1967.
The advances of medicine and surgery, especially with organ transplants, have been immense, but
would it not be better to check our own state of maintenance before we start looking for spare parts?
In former days our ill-health was attributed to witchcraft or acts of God or the Devil. In due
course we learned about the germ theory of disease and how to prevent it, but today much of our illhealth
is due to defects in our own behaviour. The heavy toll of traffic accidents, lung cancer caused
by the cigarette, obesity caused by over-eating, coronary thrombosis due to the sedentary life spent
before the T.V. screen or in cars, and above all the new threat of unknown magnitude from the increasing
pace of drug addiction.
We should be concerned about the frequent allegations of drug taking amongst "pop" singers who
areso often the objects of hero worship by the young and who, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, may lead
them to unknown disaster. Their youthful hero-worshippers have a life time before them and a national
tradition to maintain. I can see nothing in the recent history of the marijuana, cannabisor hashish
smoking nations which suggests that it is in our interests to join them in that habit.
Even if cannabis smoking is to be tolerated in adults, we should not allow children to learn the
habit in school, and therefore in the interests of the normal healthy children in our schools, a child
who is still at school but who is over compulsory school age and who boasts about taking drugs or if
found to be doing so, should be asked to leave, and a child under 15 who is dependent on drugs should
be removed to the disciplined environment of a residential school.
The more permissive will argue that severe measures will drive the problem under ground. It is
my contention, however, that drug addiction should be driven under ground, where it properly belongs,
and it should not be encouraged to establish itself on the stage of society for all to contemplate.
I am grateful for the support of the members of the Committee and for the enthusiasm and interest
of the staff, and especially to Dr. Mary C. Douglas, for the part they have played during the past year.
J.L. PATTON,
Principal School Medical Officer.
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