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12.
standards of physical health of our children while the
pasteurisation of milk has virtually eliminated tuberculous
disease of bones and joints. The universal availability of
free medical advice and treatment both by family doctors and
at local authority clinics has reduced neglected medical
conditions almost, but not quite, to vanishing point. It is
impossible to over-emphasise the part played by immunisation.
Since 1941 diphtheria (England and Wales) has been reduced
from 55,000 cases (3,000 of them fatal) annually to less than
100 cases with a handful of deaths.. During the last ten
years the incidence of whooping cough (with its too frequent
aftermath of permanent lung damage) has fallen to one fifth
and its mortality to one ninth of the 1950 figures. Vaccin
ation against poliomyelitis has already shown a similar trend
and it is expected that the proposed vaccination against
measles will be equally effective.
It may seem surprising therefore, that Wingfield House,
our School for the Physically Handicapped, is full and for
the first time for many years has a waiting list for admission.
Similarly the Joseph Clarke School for the Partially
Sighted has increased its numbers from 43 to 58 in the past
five years and the William Morris School for the Deaf from
46 to 53 over the same period. There are, of course, a
number of explanations for this. The first is obvious, over
forty per cent of the children at the Physically Handicapped
School come from Leyton or the Forest Division; Leyton s open
air school closed in July 1955 while the school population of
the Forest Division has increased during the last ten years
from 25 851 to 42,000. The schools for the deaf and the
partially sighted serve even larger areas. At William Morris
School only five of the fifty-three are Walthamstow children,
others coming from as far away as Harlow and Purfleet, while
at Joseph Clarke School the catchment area extends from
Southgate to Rayleigh. Only eight of these children live in
Walthamstow or Chingford.
The second reason is far more subtle the rising proportion
of long stay cases. There is a progressive change in
the kind of physical handicap requiring special school
placement. Although the numbers of children suffering from
the after-effects of infective conditions have steadily fallen
they have been replaced by the children, few in number but
individually presenting infinitely greater problems, who are
suffering from some form of organic brain damage Spasticity,
athetosis some forms of epilepsy, many serious eye defects,
congenital deafness inco-ordination and, as is now widely
recognised severe behaviour disorders, may all result from