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73
class or school affected. The special examination of physically
and mentally defective children and of children for admission
to truant and industrial schools will still have to be done.
There is also a considerable amount of work to be performed
in the examination of teachers on appointment, or absent on
account of illness. All these points have to be borne in mind
in considering the questions of staff required and method
of administration.
Staff and Organisation.
The Memorandum of the Board of Education states that
" the Administration of the Act should rest on a broad basis of
Public Health, and that local authorities should use to the
utmost extent the existing machinery of Medical and Sanitary
administration. The work of inspection should be supervised
by the Medical Officer of Health, and when the work is
obviously more than he can undertake unaided, it should be
entrusted to one or more Medical Officers, working under his
supervision."
This is obviously the correct view to take, for school
hygiene does not differ from general hygiene, and the conditions
and defects discovered by medical inspection will have to be
followed up in the homes in order that they may be remedied,
for as the Memorandum observes: " it is in the home that both
the seed and the fruit of public health are to be found."
In considering the Staff required for this work the
following figures must be borne in mind. The School year
consists of 200 days and the School day of about four hours.
Therefore, in 800 hours, over 5,000 children have to be
examined in the first year. If one person does this work alone
and nothing else, it means that about seven children per hour,
or one child every nine minutes, must be examined on every
day throughout the either School year.
It must, however, be remembered there is other work to
be done in connection with the Schools, as stated on pages 6669,
therefore, the Staff suggested in a previous report to the
Sub-Committee, namely, one Medical Assistant and a Nurse,
certainly errs on the side of moderation, and even with very
constant work I consider will only just suffice for the present.