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115
Introduction.
I have the honour to report on the work of the School
Medical Service during 1937. The report must, be taken in
conjunction with the work of the Health Department as
a whole, as the services of Health, Maternity and Child
Welfare and School Medical are inter-related and function
as a co-ordinated unit. A report on the School Medical
Service can be, and is, a repetition of the services of
previous years, and is not to be taken as a means of comparison
with the work of the preceding year. It is, as a
report, largely statistical, as can be seen from the tables
in the Appendix, which have already been submitted to
the Hoard of Education earlier in the year. A study of
these tables will give an indication of the extent of the
work carried out by the staff, and must indicate to the
Committee that, so far as the elementary school child is
concerned the Service is a complete one, and that with the
exception of domiciliary treatment, which we are precluded
by statute from performing, there is no medical treatment
either routine or specialised that the child cannot obtain
through these services. For this fact I am greatly
indebted to the Committee for the helpful manner in
which they have received my recommendations over the
many years of my service as their School Medical Officer.
The line of demarcation that existed between Maternity
and Child Welfare and School Medical Services lias
in Bromley long disappeared; the School Medical Service
is now the treatment service for all children under sixteen
years of age, with two exceptions, firstly, it is after five
years of age limited to the child in attendance at elementary
schools, and secondly, it takes no part in domiciliary
treatment of' the sick child. The extension of the Service
in these two directions would be tantamount to a State
Medical Service, which stage has not yet been reached in
"lis country.
Because of the extension of the School Medical Service
into the realms of medical treatment, we are apt to neglect
its more important function, that is the prevention of illliealth
and crippling disease. The treatment of teeth and
of other minor ailments in their early stages of disease do
lead to the maintenance of health and the prevention of