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number of expectant and nursing mothers attending for treatment,
Saturdays are now entirely devoted to Maternity and Child Welfare
work. Indeed, it has been found necessary latterly to attend to
some of this work during other sessions.
"The result has been that each dental surgeon has lost at least
two sessions weekly.
"However, in spite of this, it has been possible by the aid of a
'speeding up' of administration of anaesthetics, by omitting to
interview parents (both of these innovations being, in my opinion,
of doubtful benefit) and also by lengthening the sessions, to treat
almost as many children and to undertake only a comparatively
smaller number of operations than in the previous year, when these
lost sessions were available for treatment."
(h) Orthopaedic and Postural Defects.—Medical treatment of
these defects is given under an Orthopaedic Scheme in charge of
the Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Mr. Whitchurch Howell,
F.R.C.S., who holds a monthly clinic at the Physically Defective
School. Mr. Howell also acts as honorary surgeon to the Brookfield
Orthopaedic Hospital, a voluntary institution of 30 beds, recognised
as a Hospital School by both the Ministry of Health and the Board
of Education.
Two Masseuses divide their whole time between the Hospital
and the Orthopædic and Massage Clinic at the Physically Defective
School. Your Authority's cases have priority of admission to the
Hospital.
Details of the work done under the Scheme are given in tho
Section dealing with Defective Children (Section 13).
(i) Heart Disease and Rheumatism.—Dr. Wilfrid Sheldon,
Physician in Charge of the Rheumatism Clinic, reports as follows:—
"During the past year there have been 43 sessions and 774
attendances. Of these attendances, 183 were made by children
attending for the first time, while 591 were made by children
who were being kept under observation. Of the new cases, no
less than 73 (40 per cent.) were found to have some rheumatic
or cardiac defects, which, I think, reflects high credit on the
School Medical Service, by whom the majority of the cases are
referred to the Clinic. In this connection it may be pointed out
than one of the important functions of the Clinic is to act as a
referee, whether any particular child is rheumatic or not, and
that nearly half the cases referred to the Clinic should have some
serious rheumatic condition speaks highly for those who, at a
preliminary inspection, have to weed out rheumatic from other