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64
Worms, an infestation due to poor bodily resistance coupled with defective
methods of hygiene, show the remarkably low figure, in contrast, of less than 1
per cent.
Other evidence of a high level of general care shown by the children is found
in the low figure of 4½ per cent. for unsatisfactory clothing (including clothing in
any degree of raggedness) and 8 per cent. for lack of perfect cleanliness, the cases
showing actual flea-marks numbering only 2.
Impetigo and Scabies, two highly contagious conditions associated with lack
of cleanliness, were found respectively in only 7 and 1 children.
To conclude the general conditions, Rheumatism was diagnosed this year in
5 children, equal to a percentage of .45 per cent.
B. Special Conditions.
Dental caries showed a general percentage of 25, including 9 per cent. of cases
seen at the age of 2, 28 per cent. at the age of 3, and 45 per cent. at the age of 4.
The low figure of 9 per cent. for the two-year-old children contrasts favourably with
the 16 per cent. shown in previous years. The rate amongst children nearing school
age does not appear to diminish, but the mothers are alive to the importance of
treatment and almost every child seen reaches school with a perfectly clean mouth.
A word is said later on in this report on the possible need for orthodontic treatment
for certain children.
Enlarged tonsils and adenoids were observed in 48 per cent., for only a small
percentage of whom operation was recommended. This condition again does not
appear to show much variation. Only one per cent. of children showed otorrhœa.
Enlarged cervical glands, a condition associated with infections of the nose,
throat and mouth, usually due to carious teeth or infected tonsils, were found in
31 per cent. of the total children, a finding in accordance with the immediately
preceding figures.
Nervous (or behaviour) symptoms were recorded in 22 per cent. of the total. In
this regard only one special condition will be noted this year, namely, the physical
symptoms of malocclusion of the jaws with failure in proper alignment of the teeth
due in most cases to unwise thumb, finger, or dummy sucking in the indulged or
nervous child. Such malocclusion was noted in 12 per cent. of the total children,
a higher figure than the percentage in which the sucking habit was acknowledged,
but sufficient evidence of the unpleasant aesthetic and other effects that may result
from injudicious management on the purely "behaviour" side. The deformity
produced, existing in one child in eight, is one that yields to simple orthodontic
correction by the dentist in early youth and one that would seem, for hygienic as
well as cosmetic reasons, to be worth attention.