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117
The following are the observations of Mr. H. J. Seddon,
F.R.C.S., the Council's Orthopaedic Surgeon:—
"It is encouraging to report that the incidence of
severe crippling defects among children examined at the
Hendon clinics remains low. The actual incidence in the
total child population may be somewhat higher, since
Hendon is within easy reach of a number of London
Hospitals, and many parents still imagine that a serious
condition always demands investigation within the walls
of a hospital Furthermore, there is a not unnatural
tendency for general practitioners to refer patients to a
London Hospital, and our own in Great Portland Street
seems to attract a number of cases. It comes as a surprise
to doctor and patient to find that the hospital treatment
is often carried out at Stanmore, and that exactly
the same treatment could have been obtained a little more
conveniently through the Hendon orthopaedic clinics.
Yet even after making a generous allowance for cases
that may have gone elsewhere, the smallness of the list of
serious conditions encountered during the past year is
most satisfactory.
The enormous number of children with postural
defects of the spine at once attracts attention, and their
distribution is interesting; no fewer than 128 school
children are under observation or treatment for this condition,
but only one child of pre-school age. If there were
some anatomical abnormality of the spine, it would
probably have attracted attention when the children now
attending school were examined as infants; but there is
nothing to suggest that the actual structure of the spine
has been or is faulty. Neither has there been any widespread
change in home conditions; things are much the
same at home when the child is seven as when he was
four. Nor, again, are we dealing with a period of sudden
growth that might upset the muscular control of the spine.
In this roundabout way one is forced to the conclusion
that the one new factor, school, is to blame. In the past,