View report page

transferred to the E.S.N. Schools. All these children are medically examined with special care
and are the direct responsibility of the Senior Medical Officer for Child Health. The scandal of
finding intelligent children with high tone deafness in E.S.N, schools is unlikely to be repeated.
One must anticipate a rising proportion of children needing special education; children tend to
inherit their parents' intellectual as well as their physical stature and characteristics and it is an
observed fact that parents with poor intellectual endowment tend to have the largest families.
This is a trend, but not a rule. Mongolism — the largest single cause of mental defect — is quite
unrelated to the intelligence of the parents as is the brain damage known as kernicterus due to
incompatible factors in the blood of the parents. This latter condition can sometimes be prevented
or reduced by giving the baby a completely fresh supply of blood immediately after birth by
repeatedly bleeding it and replacing lost blood by transfusion. The only cause of mental deterioration
in a baby which is wholly preventable is due to an inborn error of metabolism known as
phenylketonuria and, though it is excessively rare, all Waltham Forest babies are tested for this
condition soon after birth.
The outlook is much brighter for the physically handicapped children as one after another
the causes of permanent and incurable damage are overcome. Thanks to the widespread use of the
Salk and Sabin vaccines paralytic poliomyelitis is now very rare in this country. The close
supervision by the Chest Clinic of tuberculosis patients, the more effective anti-tuberculosis
drugs, mass miniature radiography surveys, the pasteurisation of milk and control of dairy herds
and the B.C.G. vaccination of school leavers have all combined with the improved standards of
nutrition and housing conditions to reduce drastically the incidence of tuberculosis in children:
Naturally, it is relatively more common in immigrant children. Whooping cough immunisation has
reduced the number and severity of cases of chronic chest diseases (bronchiectasis), while damage
to the heart and kidneys by specific fevers — such as rheumatic fever — is nowadays prevented by
prompt and effective treatment with antibiotics. Bacterial infections now rarely cause death or
disability in children but the virus diseases, especially measles, can still produce permanent
injury, notably deafness and defects of vision — effects similar to those produced in the unborn
child when the mother contracts German measles in early pregnancy. Trials are now being carried
out with a measles vaccine which, one hopes, will prove as effective as those against diphtheria
and polio. Many of the children in the special schools have more than one disability and often
show signs of diffuse brain damage due to such virus infections, blood incompatabilities or
premature birth. Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether they would be better placed at a school
for the Deaf, for the Partially Sighted or at the Open Air School for Physically Handicapped Pupils.
The Joseph Clarke School for the Partially Sighted (named after the Medical Officer of
Health for Walthamstow 1898 to 1930) was established in 1918 when infection was a common cause
of blindness. Now, with 55 on the roll only six children come from within the Borough, the
remainder travelling by bus daily from places as distant as Potters Bar and South Ockendon, Basildon
and Tilbury. Of these 55 children only three have conditions due to infection, the remainder being
congential defects; often inherited and familial conditions of which the cause is so far completely
unknown. This school is under the specialist care of Dr.Hilton Ho, Consultant Opthalmologist at
Whipps Cross Hospital and at the Walthamstow Eye Clinic.
The William Morris School for the Deaf and Partially Hearing was one of the first Deaf
Schools in this country, being founded in April 1900 with five children on the roll. Now there are
55 with a further ten awaiting admission. The school is housed chiefly in wooden huts belonging
to the old Open Air School adjoining the railway line at Hale End Road opposite the factory of
Fullers Electric Ltd. It would be almost impossible to find a more unsuitable site for a school which
uses sensitive electronic amplifying equipment, magnetic loop aerials, etc., but a new school is to
be built in ideal surroundings at Yardley Lane, Chingford, where there are no local sources of
electro-magnetic interference. It is unfortunate that Mr.K.S.Pegg (who was Headmaster for 8V4 years
19