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11
The tables at the end of the report make interesting reading: the defects
ascertained in Routine Inspection at the schools can be found in Table IIa,
columns (2) and (3).
The "Special" cases are children referred at the schools by the Teachers
and those sent for treatment to the Clinic by me or by their mothers from home,
also by Attendance Officers, or found by the nurses when doing head inspections.
Cases for ' 'observation'' are those of doubtful nature or where preventive
measures only are advised.
Taking the defects one by one:—
(a) Uncleanliness.
During the routine medical inspections at the schools, eight children were
found to have verminous heads and 103 had dirty bodies. This is slightly
less than last year, the figures for 1932 being 13 heads (nits and vermin) and
103 bodies.
Table IV, Group V, will shew that the average number of visits paid by
the School Nurses to each school for purposes of head inspection was 22. The
total number of head inspections made by them was 46,044. The number of
individual children they found to be unclean was 1.006, or 7.5 of the school
population. Out of these, 18 were cleansed at the Town Hall by the Nurses
themselves, working on the lines of the Children's Act.
A sealed envelope containing a card of directions for home cleansing is
sent by post to the parent of each child found to have an unclean head.
The Nurses report that much the same children and families continue to
be found unclean time after time.
(b) Tonsils and Adenoids.
There has been a radical alteration this year in the method of selection
of cases for the removal of tonsils and adenoids.
The report for 1931 of Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer to the
Board of Education, was published at the end of 1932. In this he commends
certain general principles to the guidance of local School Medical Officers.
When operations were largely advocated throughout the country, beginning
about ten years ago, the children were very greatly improved, their physique