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122
Medical Inspection.
The statistical particulars appear in Table I. of the
Appendix.
All children coming within the three age groups, viz,
entrants, second age group (intermediates), and third age
group (leavers), are medically inspected at school, and
those discovered with defects are re-inspected at the school
clinic and referred through the necessary channels for
treatment. The medical inspections are not limited to
routine inspections, hut extended to the special inspections
at the school clinics and special clinics. During the yean
no less than 0,778 cases came under medical inspection
(including the specialists' consultations but excluding
dental inspections), and these figures give some indication
of the extent of the work of the School Medical Services.
The routine medical inspections are carried out on the
school premises, with the exception of those schools, such
as, Plaistow St. Mary's and Parish Schools, where there
is no available accommodation for the inspection, necessitating
the children and parents attending the School
Clinic for thp inspection. It is pleasing to learn that in
the re-organisation of elementary education in Bromley
these schools will shortly be re-modelled to provide better
medical examination facilities.
In addition there is the medical examination of
employed children, the special examination of the mentally
retarded, the physically defective, the blind, the deaf, the
maladjusted child, and all requiring special school
education.
The medical inspection at school is a routine one:it
brings to light defects that are apparent to the medical
examiner, hut it fails to give us an indication of the
normal or abnormal physiological functioning of the child
Before the medical examiner can give a complete opinion
on these lines, it would be necessary not only to have the
presence of the child and the parent, but the class teacher
the previous medical history of the child, the family
medical history, a knowledge of the child's life outside
school hours, and finally a report of a social worker on the