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children affected is small, it is true, but by no means insignificant.
Many of the conditions recorded, moreover, fortunately represent
the effects of arrested disease. But all may be said to call for a
modified regime in the life of the child, a regime most fittingly
introduced as part of and integral to its educational routine.
BOYS AND GIRLS CONTRASTED.
Contrasting the results of inspection of boys and of girls, it
is to be observed that girls are better clothed and shod, better
nourished, and, apart from the harbouring of vermin, cleaner in
person and clothing than are boys. With the exception of defects
of vision, and of affections of the heart and lungs, girls come out
better than boys in respect of every item of the Board's Schedule.
Doubtless in these facts is to be found an explanation, in part at
least, of the higher mortality among boys than among girls.
Girls are the objects of a more fostering care. Better clothed,
cleaned and nourished, they are less exposed to the agencies
destructive of health and life than are boys who, where the
struggle for life is keenest, or at least more primitive, must
naturally make shift. It is well that chivalry should show at the
more primal levels of human effort.
If medical inspection at its inception in Willesden has
revealed much that is satisfactory, it has also exhibited more than
enough, not only to justify itself, but to demonstrate the imperative
necessity of the measure as an essential and urgently needed step
in the protection of the national health. To prate about it as a
" doctor's fad " will not be possible to those who study the mere
bald facts in which it issues.
With a little imaginative understanding of these facts they
will be seen to range themselves among those intrusive phenomena
to ignore the significance of which is impossible in any sane
endeavour at social amelioration or rational attempt to improve
the public health.