View report page

educational circumstances, follow-up card and recommendations
regarding employment, all in one document of convenient size,
which can accompany the child throughout his school career.
Among other things, it modifies and simplifies the classification
of defects and replaces the previous nutritional assessment by
a wider one covering the child's general condition. The reason
for this is because so many other factors inevitably entered
into the Medical Officers' judgment that it had long been recognised
that the assessment could not be regarded as a measure
of pure nutrition, and in that respect was misleading. As an
indication of the child's general health, which may be influenced
by many things, including nutrition, it forms a very useful guide
to those children who require rather more careful observation
to see them through. The new classification of general condition
is divided into three categories, as against the previous four,
and it is by no means clear that the new A, B and C groups
can be accepted as corresponding very closely with the old
A, B and C, even when it is borne in mind that the numbers
placed in the old D group were too small to bias the distribution
as a whole. The percentages allotted to the various groups
during this first year of trial are therefore somewhat tentative
and may be modified in future years in the light of experience.
A comparative table shewing the number of medical inspections
and certain other types of work carried out in this and
previous years will be found on page 99.
TREATMENT
RINGWORM. The number of cases of ringworm of the
scalp treated during the year was 15. Nine of them were
referred to the London Hospital for X-ray treatment under the
Authority's standing arrangement. This represents a small
reduction on the numbers found in 1945 and 1946, at which
time it was feared that the disease might be on the increase.
MINOR AILMENTS. The treatment of minor ailments
is undertaken at the school clinics. The total number of conditions
treated at these clinics during the year was 7,936. Following
is an analysis of this figure:—
External Eye Diseases 632
Minor Ear Defects 599
Skin Diseases 1,347
Miscellaneous Defects 5,358