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with milk or malt and oil at the cost of the Education Committee.
In addition, there is the re-examination towards the end of the year
of all children who have been found at previous routine or special
examinations 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, 1937, was 5,413. The number examined
by the School Medical Officers during the year was 3,562.
V.—FINDINGS OF MEDICAL INSPECTIONS.
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 inspections to require
treatment. This number is again small, a very satisfactory state
of affairs, which, as I have remarked in previous reports, is very
largely due to the close co-operation which exists between the
schools and the school medical services, and to the use which is
made of the facilities provided at the 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 many weeks or months before
the particular children concerned are due for routine medical
inspection. In this way the number of defects actually requiring
treatment found at the routine inspections tends to be very small.
(a) Nutrition.
Table IIb gives a classification of the nutrition of the children
inspected during the year in the routine age-groups. Of the total
number of children examined in these groups it will be seen that
23.96 per cent. were classified as excellent as regards nutrition,
63.39 as normal, 12.5 as slightly subnormal, and only 0.19 as bad.
If columns A and B in the table are taken together and columns B
and C, it will be seen that in 87.35 per cent. of the children the
nutrition was either excellent or normal, while in 12.64 per cent. it
was either slightly subnormal or bad. These figures are practically
identical with those for the previous year, and while they are,
on the whole, fairly satisfactory, there is room yet for considerable
improvement.
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