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Entrants, Intermediates and Leavers, and also to work off various
arrears of work that remained as a legacy of the disturbed conditions
that existed during the war.
(b) It was found impossible however to overtake the whole
of the work so planned, and at the end of the year three schools
remained at which no routine medical inspection had been done.
These schools will accordingly be visited by the School Medical
Officer in the early part of 1921, when double groups will be
examined with a view to bringing the work up-to-date. This will,
of course, throw the routine examinations for 1921 still further
behind, and to meet the difficulty I have applied for the assistance
of a third medical officer which will allow of a more systematic
distribution and a more thorough performance of the various
branches of school medical service.
(c) Each time the School Medical Officer visits a school to
examine children he includes all abnormal children as " specials,"
in addition to his routine cases. In this way not only is every
new cripple child in a school immediately seen, but an annual
survey is made of all known cripples with a view to noting their
progress. Cases in which the crippling defect is too severe to
allow the child to attend school' are investigated by the School
Attendance Officers, and if necessary the School Medical Officer
visits the child at its home.
(d) The disturbance of school routine caused by Medical
Inspection is minimised by the doctor using the teachers' rooms
for his examinations and having the children from their classes in
small batches of six at a time. This arrangement, for which we
are indebted to the courtesy of the teachers, has been found to
work very well.
5. FINDINGS OF MEDICAL INSPECTIONS.
Uncleanliness.
(a) A considerable part of the School Nurses' work consists
in maintaining a standard of cleanliness amongst school children.
For this purpose a school nurse visits each school thrice yearly
and examines each scholar, paying special attention to the
presence of vermin or nits, and to the state of the hair. These
repeated examinations over a course of years have had the result
of raising the standard of personal hygiene very considerably,
whilst this constant supervision leads to the discovery and early