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101
tions, and in only one case was it found necessary to
take legal action under the School Attendance byelaws.
Negligent parents we shall always have with us,
but it is a constant delight to those of us who have been
in the School Medical Service for so many years to see
the vast improvement that has taken place in the hearing
and cleanliness of the children in attendance at elementary
schools.
(c) Minor Ailments.
Table IIa, page 1.37, shows the various defects discovered,
while Table IV, Group I, gives details of
treatments carried out at the School Clinics. The consistency
in the number of children who attend the clinic
for treatment is an indication in itself of the success of
the School Medical Service.
Over 2,100 children received treatment from the
School Nurses during the year, and over 9,000 attendances
were made by children at the various clinics. It
must be clearly understood that where a child requires
domiciliary treatment the mother is advised to take him
or her to her own practitioner. The clinic itself acts
more in the nature of an outpatient department, medical
direction being given, and where the. ailment is a minor
one, treatments are carried out at the treatment clinics,
Where the case requires further specialist advice for
orthopædic, ear, nose, throat or eye defects, it is automatically
referred to the specialist. We may therefore
say that no child need suffer for lack of treatment, for
the provisions made by the Education Committee are
complete.
(d) Visual Defects and External Eye Disease.
In Table IV, Group II (Page 143) will be found
the statistics for the year.
Of the children examined at the Routine Medical
Inspections at the schools, 8.4 per cent. showed defective
vision requiring corrective treatment. This is a fall
on the previous year's figures, but still appears to be a
prevalent defect into which little causal investigation is
being made. Dr. Eric Lyle's report on the treatment
of bye defects follows later in this report, together with
the report on the year's work f' the Orthoptic clinic.