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Group II.—Special Eye Clinic (page 121).
This Clinic is held each week under Mr. A. M.
Hickley who gives skilled specialist work in the cases of
defective vision and diseases of the eye.
Cases discovered with defective vision are referred for
Mr. Hickley's attention, and cases previously prescribed
glasses are referred for re-inspection in order to ascertain
that the glasses are suitable. The following-up of these
cases is a difficult matter as there is a common dislike
among children to wearing of glasses; breakages are not
replaced and many parents still tend to be careless with
this necessary provision. The co-operation of teachers is
helpful, and needful, if children to whom glasses have
been prescribed for defective vision are to continue to wear
them in school.
Four hundred and eight cases attended the Clinic in
1934; 187 cases were new ones for refraction; 206
re-inspections were carried out; seven were referred to
hospital for special treatment, and 236 children had glasses
prescribed. The Care Committee provides glasses in
necessitous cases, a provision which makes for 100 per
cent. of cases prescribed glasses obtaining them. The
glasses are obtained from a local firm at special prices.
Children with high myopic condition are referred to
special classes by arrangement with the London County
Council, and persons coming within the provisions of the
Blind Persons Act are referred to Mr. Hickley by the
Kent County Council.
Whilst the Clinic meets the present demand for the
patient with eye defect, the scope of the medical services
must be widened in the direction of prevention of this
impairment. The lighting of Schools, the posture of the
child at school and the early discovery of eye defect are
the directions in which this service gives its attention.
Fortunately these factors are becoming acquired
universally, the new schools with modern equipment
replacing the out-of-date and ill-equipped schools of the
past generation, while the teachers and most parents are
alive to the fact that defective sight leads to defective
output at school. The convalescence of children after
infectious disease such as measles is an important factor