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Treated with orthoptic exercises 40. Of these, 11 are still on
treatment, 1 waiting for operation, 12 resting from treatment and
16 were discharged. Of the 16 cases discharged 9 were cured,
2 almost cured and 5 improved.

(f) Ear Disease and Defective Hearing - Ear Clinic:- Dr.Francis
Clarke reports as follows:-
"The number of attendances at the regular weekly session of
Aural clinic during the year 1943 was equal, on an average, to those
of pre-war years. This increased and more regularised attendance
was due to the large number of children returned from evacuation
and the more regular, normal routine medical inspection of the
schools which had been somewhat disorganised during the first two
years of the war. The clinic is mainly supplied from the routine
medical inspection of the schools, where children found suffering
from any defects of Ear, Nose and Throat are referred to the clinic
for examination and any appropriate treatment required, or other
recommendation.
"The special new detailed Table of Returns used in pre-war
years is not considered necessary at present, as a number of children
could not complete the full course of prescribed treatment and the
heavy extra calls made on the Hospitals considerably delayed certain
operations such as tonsillectomy, nasal operations etc., so that
many unavoidable circumstances, inevitable under war time conditions
. make such a statistical table extremely difficult to compile from a
purely clinical point of view. The total number of attendances,
the totals of various defects for which they have been treated, and
the attendances at the treatment clinic have been shown in the
ordinary yearly statistical school medical report.
"There has been no noticeable increase in the number of any of
the particular defects usually found at the Ear, Nose and Throat
clinic. Chronic oterrheea which used to be one of the commonest
and most intractable Conditions in school children, is now very
infrequently met with. Two factors are mainly responsible for this
very satisfactory and gratifying improvement. Zinc ionisation which
we regularly employ in all cases of chronic otorrhoea affords the
most rapid and certain method of permanent cure. Two or three
applications are all that an average case requires and it is applied
at the clinic as against the one time method of depending on the
parents to thoroughly cleanse the child's ear and instil various
"antiseptic drops1' two or throe times a day for weeks. Such a
procedure was unscientific and impracticable and the results were
usually a failure. The second important factor is early recognition
and treatment of acute otorrhoea, particularly amongst pre-school
children. An increasing number of such cases is now being dealt with
at the clinic and, in passing, special attention is paid to any nasal
defects amongst these children, as these untreated defects are
frequently the precursors to later serious ear complications.
About forty children were treated during the year for "enlarged"
or diseased tonsils by the Tonsil Suction method. The results have
been very satisfactory and confirm our previous reports on the value
of this new treatment.
10.