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83
It will be noticed that the percentage of children found, at
routine medical inspection, to require treatment has undergone a
very marked reduction, and one of the outstanding factors responsible
for this appreciable diminution is the rapidly growing
interest'and desire on the part of some parents to seek the advice
of the School Medical Service in regard to minor defects and
apparently trivial ailments. The popularity of the Clinics bears
witness to the success of the uphill fight waged by the School
Medical Service during the past twenty years. There is no
doubt however that the earlier inculcation of healthy habits and the
education of young parents and young children in the necessity
for observing the laws of hygiene would prevent indifference and
indolence to health matters, and procrastination on the part
of so many parents who either hesitate to have treatment for
their children " until they are a little older " or " until the
warmer weather comes " or who retain the belief that their children
will undergo a physical transformation on reaching the age
of seven years. The number of defects found in the entrant and
intermediate age groups is probably dependant upon these underlying
causes, and should be a matter for the grave concern of the
Maternity and Child Welfare Committee as well as of the Education
Committee. It is indeed unfortunate that all children born in
East Ham do not come under the control of the Maternity and
Child Welfare Centre. The period between birth and five years of
age is that in which children ai'e most prone to disease, and
yet, to quote Sir George Newman in his report for the year 1926,
" there is no continuous supervision by the same authority " and
the Education Authority has to receive " damaged goods." The
systematic and routine medical supervision of infants and children
under school age, the early teaching of hygiene and healthy habits
and the early treatment of minor defects would certainly prevent
serious physical defects during school life and subsequently, and
in many cases would avert the occurrence of one or more superimposed
complications, whilst systematic, and casual, education in
hygiene and the laws of health by the teachers in our schools would
tend towards improvement in the physical condition of children
in the present generation and still more so in the next generation.
In almost all cases disease is predisposed to by faulty hygiene and