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When defects were found treatment was advised, and the school nurse had to follow
up in the home to see whether the treatment was oarried out and to offer further explanation
and advice. At first the main defects found at medical inspections in West Ham were dirt,
dental decay and "dimness of vision". It soon became obvious that simple advice and treatment
was insufficient as it had to be carried out by general practitioners whom many of the
parents could not afford to consult. As a result of this the first permanent school clinic
in West Ham was opened in Balaam Street in 1913.
Soon the demand exceeded the resources of a single clinic and referrals had to be
strictly scrutinised. The clinic was used as a last resort, and only for children where
several visits by the school nurse had failed to achieve improvement and where poverty
precluded private medical attention. With the advent of the 1914-1918 world war the clinic
had to be used more freely. The recruitment of so many doctors into the armed forces, and
the pre-occupation of parents with the war effort, made It imperative for the Sohool Health
Service to step in. Encouraged by the Board of Education the West Ham authority provided
three more clinics in 1917; in Rosetta Road, at Public Hall In Canning Town and at The
Grove. in view of the circumstances attention could only be given to ailing children and,
in 1918, this principle had also to be applied to the periodic medical inspections. Only
children selected on medical grounds by the nurse and teacher were brought forward for
medical examination.
in the same year arrangements were made with St.Mary's Hospital, Plaistow, for the
surgical treatment of tonsils and adenoids, the education authority undertaking to pay for
each child treated. Similar arrangements were made with the London Hospital for x-ray
treatment of ringworm of the scalp. it is gratifying to see that arrangements for the
treatment of school children such as the provision of school clinics, dental treatment,
x-ray treatment for ringworm, treatment at the tuberculosis dispensary, as well as the
extension of medical Inspections from elementary schools to secondary schools, were all
well established in West Ham before the passing of the Education Act, 1918, extended the
statutory duties of Local Education Authorities.
By 1920, the service returned to normal after the war and routine medical
inspections were resumed. By then the staff consisted of the Medical Officer of Health,
his Deputy, five Assistant Medical Officers, one Oculist, one consulting medical officer
for special purposes, two Dental Surgeons and twenty School Nurses. This year (1920) also
saw the opening of the Knox Road Special School for sixty-five defective children.
It might be appropriate at this stage to mention that, since 1903, the West Ham
Education Committee had exercised Its powers under the Elementary Education (Defective
and Epileptic Children) Act of 1899 to provide instruction for educable defective children
at its oldest special school, the present Elizabeth Fry. Two deaf centres had also been
provided under powers granted by the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act
of 1893.
Thus the Elizabeth Fry school which accommodated eighty mentally and forty physically
defective children was well established before the Education (Defective and Epileptic
Children) Act of 1914 made provision for "defective" children compulsory. In those days the
children were usually discovered by the School Attendance Officers who submitted their names
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