London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
View report page
Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Tottenham 1959
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Tottenham]
This page requires JavaScript
This shows an overall decrease of 720 compared with the previous year.
| Hornsey | Tottenham | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Schools and Nursery Classes | 6,017 | 8,632 |
| Nursery Schools | - | 204 |
| Secondary Modern Schools | 2,839 | 5,735 |
| Grammar and Technical Schools | 1,904 | 2,884 |
| Special Schools - | ||
| Physically Handicapped | - | 92 |
| Blanche Nevile School for Deaf | - | 100 |
| 10,760 | 17,647 |
Routine Medical Inspection
The following table shows the number of children inspected by years of birth and the classification of their physical condition.
| Year of Birth | Number of pupils inspected | Physical Condition of Pupils Inspected | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Satisfactory | Unsatisfactory | ||||
| Number | % | Number | % | ||
| 1955 & Later | 480 | 473 | 98.5 | 7 | 1.5 |
| 1954 | 1244 | 1225 | 98.5 | 19 | 1.5 |
| 1953 | 756 | 749 | 99.1 | 7 | 0.9 |
| 1952 | 150 | 147 | 98.0 | 3 | 2.0 |
| 1951 | 208 | 205 | 98.6 | 3 | 1.4 |
| 1950 | 1720 | 1707 | 99.2 | 13 | 0.8 |
| 1949 | 373 | 370 | 99.2 | 3 | 0.8 |
| 1948 | 445 | 445 | 100.0 | - | - |
| 1947 | 2145 | 2135 | 99.5 | 10 | 0.5 |
| 1946 | 1134 | 1132 | 99.8 | 2 | 0.2 |
| 1945 | 663 | 658 | 99.2 | 5 | 0.8 |
| 1944 & earlier | 2963 | 2955 | 99.7 | 8 | 0.3 |
| Total | 12281 | 12201 | 99.3 | 80 | 0.7 |
As an experiment permitted under the School Health Service and Handicapped Pupils
Regulations to dispense with routine medical inspections for specified aged groups and to substitute
periodic visits to schools to see selected cases, a pilot survey was carried out at one
school among the eight to nine year olds, totalling 111 children.
Of these, 40 were chosen by the teachers and head teacher for a special medical inspection.
When the children were seen, however, it was found that almost all of them were either known to
the School Health Service as being under treatment at for example the Chest Clinic or Children's
Hospital, etc. Nevertheless it was obvious that the teachers wished to have advice concerning
these children and this advice was given.
During the following term the 71 "healthy" children were seen at periodic medical
inspections to serve as controls. Of these, 50 were regarded as fit and not in need of advice or
treatment. Of the remaining 21, it is considered that nine had defects, e.g. vision and hearing,
which would have been picked up by the school nurse or audio metrician. (In fact the two children
with hearing defect had been so picked up and were under investigation). Of the remaining 12
children, six were referred for treatment and six for observation.