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Department. His services were especially useful in persuading
parents of children suffering from defective vision to submit
them to examination by the Education Gommittee's Oculist
and to provide spectacles when these had been found necessary.
Other cases in which this officer was asked to interest himself
were those in which the home conditions and care were found
to be unsatisfactory and repeated visits by the nursing staff
had failed to effect the desired improvement.
13. BLIND, DEAF, DEFECTIVE AND EPILEPTIC
CHILDREN.
A special register is kept in the School Medical Department
of all defective children. Information regarding new
cases is furnished by the Head Teachers, School Attendance
Officers, and School Nurse-Health Visitors.
The School Medical Inspector devotes on an average
two sessions per week to visiting the schools for the purpose
of ascertaining and examining suspected cases of mental deficiency.
Communications are also addressed periodically to
the Head Teachers of the schools asking them to forward
lists of all children considered to be defective within the
meaning of Part V of the Education Act, 1921. As the result
of these measures one hundred and fourteen such special
examinations or re-examinations were carried out in 1937.
Children requiring education in Myope or Sight-saving
Schools are referred by the Oculist from the Refraction
Clinic, whilst physically defective children in need of education
in Special Schools are brought forward from the Orthopaedic
Clinic.
Children with impaired hearing are specially examined
at the Health Centre with a view to ascertaining their suitability
for admission to Partially Deaf Schools. Most of
these children have at one time or another attended the outpatient
departments of hospitals in London. Special reports
from the surgeons, under whose charge they have been, are
requested and in every case their assistance is readily forthcoming.
Later in the year, such cases were the subjects of
special reports by the Ear, Nose and Throat Consultant in
charge of the Aural Clinic.
Blind and Partially Sighted Children. There was only one
blind child on the register at the end of 1937. This boy was
in attendance at the Linden Lodge (L.C.C.) School for the
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