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31
Two Masseuses divide their whole time between the Hospital
and the orthopaedic 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 the
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 47 sessions with 824
attendances. Of these attendances, 177 were made by children
attending for the first time, while 647 were made by children who
were being kept under observation. The majority of the children
under observation are suffering from some defect of the heart, and
although a few of them suffer from a progressive type of disease
showing little tendency to remissions or improvement, most of them
have shown no deterioration in health, and it is a pleasure to record
that a small number have improved to the extent of a complete
disappearance of evidence of heart disease.
"The supervision of children with heart disease at much more
frequent periods than could be accomplished by the ordinary school
medical service tends to maintain their health at a higher standard
and is an important contributory influence in the prevention of
further cardiac damage. This, I submit, is one of the most valuable
functions of the clinic.
"Of the cases attending for the first time, 62 were found
to be suffering from rheumatic or cardiac defect. The majority
of these are referred to the clinic by the School Medical Service,
and credit is due to the medical officers for so assiduously picking
out the cases of early heart disease. During the year, 184 children
were discharged from the clinic, some after their first attendance
because they were not held to be rheumatic, some because after
several months of observation their rheumatic symptoms had disappeared,
and a few on account of having reached the school leaving
age. For the children of the last group, the opportunity is taken
at the final consultation of discussing with the parents the type of
employment which would be most suitable to the particular child.
"Other Defects.—It has again been my impression during the
last year that coincident defects of health, particularly carious
teeth and septic tonsils, are met with less frequently among the
Walthamstow children than was the case when the clinic first began.
During the year, 45 children have been referred for dental treatment,
and in 27 cases removal of tonsils and adenoids has been