London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Hounslow 1968
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hounslow]
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TABLE 1
Closed Figures, Percentage of Children Moving the Left (L) or Right (R) Hands Clockwise (C) or Anticlockwise (A) When Moving the Hands Singly or Simultaneously
| Normal n=45 | Brain damaged n =26 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L R | Circle | Angular | Circle | Angular |
| Single | ||||
| A A | 51 | 65 | 27 | 41 |
| C C | 7 | 15 | 15 | 12 |
| A C | 29 | 13 | 35 | 37 |
| C A | 13 | 7 | 23 | 10 |
| Mixed | (27) | (47) | ||
| Simultaneous | ||||
| A A | 9 | 10 | 0 | 7 |
| C C | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| A C | 53 | 61 | 69 | 70 |
| C A | 38 | 27 | 31 | 21 |
| Mixed | (14) | (45) | ||
For the angular figures (square, triangle and
diamond) the mixed movements are expressed
as percentages of the total the other movements
as percentages of the continuous movements.
When drawing horizontal lines singly. 33
per cent of the movements were in opposite
directions, and there was a strong tendency to
move dextrad (63 per cent of left-hand movements,
96 per cent of right) When moving
si multaneously 91 per cent moved in opposite
directions, the left hand making only 14 per
cent of dextrad movements the right 91 per
cent (Table II)
When drawing vertical lines, the tendency
to move downwards - i e , towards the body on
the horizontal plane of the table - was very
strong Only one child moved upwards (one
hand in separate movements and both in
simultaneous movements) there was no case
of simultaneous movements in opposite vertical
directions
For oblique lines also the tendency to move
downwards was marked but not so strong as
for vertical lines In single movements 67 per
cent were both downwards 23 per cent upwards
58
TABLE 2
Horizontal Lines Percentage of Children Moving the Left (L) or Right (R) Hand Dextrad (D) or Sinistrad (S) When Moving the Hands Singly or Simultaneously
| L R | Normal n=45 | Brain damaged n=26 |
|---|---|---|
| Single | ||
| D D | 63 | 15 |
| S S | 4 | 12 |
| D S | 0 | 0 |
| S D | 33 | 73 |
| Simultaneous | ||
| D D | 7 | 4 |
| S S | 2 | 4 |
| D S | 7 | 4 |
| S D | 34 | 38 |
and 10 per cent in opposite directions. But in
simultaneous movements only one child for one
pair of obliques, moved the hands in opposite
vertical directions. In drawing the single obliques
only 2 errors of direction (out of 130 counting both
hands) were made (Table III) In the two pairs of
parallel obliques, 10 errors (out of 90) were made
of such a kind that the hands made converging or
diverging movements The two pairs of opposite
obliques (which would seem perceptually more
difficult than the parallels) produced 2 errors the
lines being drawn parallel In the total of 12 errors
made in the double obliques, 10 were spontaneously
corrected, so these were not errors of perception
either visual of kinaesthetic, the children knew
that the unseen movement of their hand had not
imitated the direction of the line they were looking
at
Srain-damaged Children
The brain-damaged children showed the same
tendency as normal children to high frequency of
opposite movements when drawing the pairs of
horizontal lines, circles and angular figures
simultaneously (Tables I and II) But when the
horizontal line was drawn signly there was a
significantly greater (p-= 001) preponderance of