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123
home environment. Having obtained all this, physiologi-
cal tests would still be required, and unfortunately
standardised tests for true functioning of the separate
organs are not yet available. We can, therefore, but
continue with the present system of three routine medical
inspections adding a further inspection for the child just
prior to leaving school.
Findings at Medical Inspections.
These are recorded in detail in the Appendix.
(a) Mahvutrition. Table IIb. (page 157).
Of the 1,816 children medically examined at school
0.5 per cent, showed bad nutrition, and a further 8.6 per
cent, sub-normal nutrition. This does not, however, take
into account the children attending the special inspections
at the Clinics, but must not be taken to mean that 13 per
cent of children at school are of sub-normal nutrition.
Cases of malnutrition attend the school clinics where
continuous observation is kept and adequate treatment
provided. Where the case is one of lack of nutrition
owing to poverty, the case is referred to the Bromley
Children's Care Committee for extra nourishment at home,
or at school, or the child may be sent to a residential home
for convalescent treatment.
(b) Uncleanliness. Table VI. (page 165).
One continues to find that the vermin inspections at
schools by the school nurses result largely in the
re-discovery of the child who is " chronically verminous."
Fourteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven
examinations were made during the year, and vermin
were found either in the form of live vermin, or the eggs
of vermin, in 320 children. This remains a fairly constant
figure over the past few years, and, although eight
prosecutions were taken under the School Attendance
Rye-laws in 1937, little improvement results in these
eases. The fact that uncleanliness should exist at all in
these days is incomprehensible to many of us, b t while
housing conditions exist without bathroom accommodation
one must expect a lack of cleanliness in certnin families.