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Disturbances of School Arrangements.
No one supposes that the ordinary school curriculum is not disorganised to some extent bv
the needs of medical inspection especially where all the available accommodation is required lor
educational purposes. The Head Teachers of the district, however, are to be congratulated upon
the arrangements they make under such difficult conditions, and I Should like to place on record
once again my appreciation of the fact that the inspecting Medical Officer is always made as
comfortable as circumstances permit.
5.—FINDINGS OF MEDICAL INSPECTIONS.
(a). Malnutrition.
Malnutrition in the full sense of the word again shows the small figures I have drawn
attention to on previous occasions, but sub-normal nutrition is still as manifest as ever.
Some slight index of this may be found in the number of children who have been passed as
suitable for Milk Meals at school, but even this does not give a full picture of all the cases of subnormal
nutrition.
It is interesting to see how throughout the Country the number of Medical Officers who are
now beginning to call attention to sub-normal nutrition is steadily growing.
In order to find a possible way out, I have been for some time trying to obtain a grant in
order to carry out some Research Work by way of translating the Nutritional Committee's findings
into practical politics as far as the poorer members of the community are concerned.
Much of this sub-normal nutrition is not due to deficiency of wages or relief, but is due to
ignorance or crass stupidity.
During the year the Carnegie Trustees have voted me a grant of £500 for research in this
direction which I hope may make available some figures and facts which will help the class of
individuals one is referring to. At the same time one realises only too well the amazing difficulty
one is up against in attempting to take this section of the population out of their dietetic ruts,
many of which are habits of generations.
1 have been criticised severely, and I am still being criticised, because I have said repeatedly,
and still persist in saying, that the teaching of cookery in the schools is largely responsible for the
present condition of unsatisfactory nutrition. Let me say at once, this is not the fault of the
schools but the system they have to work to. It must be remembered in mitigation of their trouble
that they are primarily educational and therefore have to work to a syllabus; there is some
elasticity, but unfortunately not enough.
The difficulty is that the cost of the dietetic base line used in teaching is too high. Anybody
who has had to deal with catering in any way, or run a household, knows how damnably difficult
it is, if wages are reduced, to cut the cost, say 10s. a week, and how very much easier it is if wages
go up, to amplify, and for that reason, if the base line and expenditure is high to start with it
makes it very much more difficult than if the base line is lower, as this can be added to when there
is any increase in wages.
As long ago as before the War I raised this point of the base line. As I put it then " Many
of the children who are being taught to cook in terms of three pounds a week will never handle
more than twenty-five shillings a week as long as they live."
I have been accused of wanting to depress the living conditions of the poorer classes.
There is nothing further from the truth than this accusation. The facts being as they are, and
seeing what I do, it seems to me imperative, so long as economic conditions remain as they are,
to do whatever lies in one's power to enable those with very restricted incomes to make the best
use of their incomes, because in my experience so much of their inability to use the income they
do receive is the result of dietetic ignorance.
(b). Uncleanliness.
The number of cases discovered at routine medical inspections was 107, and special medical
inspections at the Clinics revealed a further 801 cases.
Five hundred and twenty-six children were excluded from school during the year on
account of nits or vermin.
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