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In addition to these routine inspections, 1,053 special cases
were examined and 2,469 children re-examined. The "specials"
are children who have been referred to the School Medical Officers
by the School Nurses or teachers, or who are brought for examination
by parents or guardians. A small proportion of these special
cases are seen at school at the time of the ordinary medical inspections,
but the great majority are seen at the School Clinic at special
consultations on Tuesday or Saturday mornings. The children
re-examined are those who have been found at previous routine or
special examination to be suffering from defects which require
either to receive treatment or to be kept under observation.
The total number of children on the registers of the elementary
schools on December 31st, 1936, was 5,543. The number examined
by the School Medical Officers during the year was 3,573.
V.—FINDINGS OF MEDICAL INSPECTION.
The details of the medical inspections, the defects found and
the number for which treatment was provided will be found in the
statistical tables at the end of this Report. Table Ic shows the
number of children found at the routine medical inspections to
require treatment. These numbers are again very small, and must
be regarded as very satisfactory. Their smallness is very largely
due to the close co-operation which exists between the schools and
the school medical service, and to the use made of the facilities
provided at the School Clinic for advice and treatment. Defects
in children are, as a rule, brought to our notice by the head teachers
at a very early stage, and the necessary treatment may be arranged
for or provided weeks or months before the routine medical inspections
are due to take place in particular schools. In this way
the number of defects actually requiring treatment found at the
routine inspections tends to be very small.
Table IIa gives details of the defects found both at the routine
and the special examinations, classified as either requiring treatment
or to be kept under observation. It will be observed that
at the routine inspections the number of defects found to require
treatment is low compared with those which require to be kept
under observation, whereas at the special inspections the defects
found to require treatment are very much in excess of those referred
for observation.
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