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(a) Age groups Inspected.
The Board of Education requires Local Authorities to
make provision for the Medical Inspection of all children
admitted to school during the year ending March 31st, and of
all children between 12 and 13 years of age, together with
children over 13 years of age, who have not already been
inspected after reaching the age of 12. An intermediate
group - children between 8 and 9 years of age - has also to
be examined.
During the year all these children have been inspected
and in addition 88 special cases have been examined at the
Routine Inspections. The latter were mainly children who
owing to the war - had missed an inspection or were specially
brought forward by the School Teachers owing to the presence
of a supposed defect.
In addition to these a very large number of children were
seen at the Minor Ailment Clinic, altogether during the year,
1130 such children were seen.
In my Report for 1919, I mentioned that during that year
it had not been possible to examine as many children as usual,
but I stated that more inspections would be made in future
years. The figures show that this has occurred during 1920,
and - what is more important - more following up of defects
has been undertaken.
Very little disturbance of school arrangements is
involved by the Medical Inspections. There are no special
rooms,of course,for this work, but the Head Teacher's room
is usually available or a spare class room.
At some schools there is no available room for the
waiting mothers, and this causes some congestion and discomfort.
It is usual to visit one of these schools in the Summer,
so that one class can be outside in the playground for
lessons while the classroom is being used as a waiting room
for mothers and children.
5. FINDINGS OF MEDICAL INSPECTIONS.
(a) Unclear-illness.
The degree of cleanliness of both head and body is
noticed at the Inspections.
I again have to report a large number of cases of
uncleanliness especially with regard to the hair of the girls.
Out of 935 girls examined, 5 had verminous heads while
278 or 29% had nits in the hair. This is an improvement on
the previous year's figures but the percentage is still too
high.
It should be noted that the number given,viz.,278
includes every child showing only one or two nits, and it was
only necessary to refer a small proportion of these for
treatment by means of special notices.
Out of 1065 boys examined, one was found to be verminous
and 38 were found to have nits in the hair. All of these
boys were found to be wearing their hair too long, and it v/as
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