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64
To the School Medical Officer,
County Borough of East Ham,
Education Committee.
Sir,
I have to report that during my period of office as Ophthalmic
Surgeon to the Education Committee, I have examined 656 eve
cases—Cases for refraction 517, Cases of Eye Disease 139. Of
these, 133 cases are being re-examined at intervals of six months.
These latter are usually cases of short sight, in which the prescribing
of glasses is a secondary, though important, consideration,
the real point being the prevention of increase in the degree
of the defect.
This can be best effected by' attending to the general hygiene
of the child, with special reference to teeth, tonsils and adenoids,
the general conditions under which children live, both at home
and at School. There are many cases of myopia in East Ham
attending ordinary Schools, for whom special treatment would be
useful, not in "myopic" or "blind" Schools, but in a special
School where delicate children of all types—myopics, deaf children,
and those suffering from the effects of Inf Intile Paralysis or
Chorea, and so on, could receive their education. These children,
who suffer in the "rough and tumble" of an ordinary School,
could in this way be trained as efficient citizens, instead of, for
instance, leaving school with such a degree of myopia as to give
them a definite handicap when they come to earn their own
livings. The ideal consists in shorter hours, and smaller classes
than is the rule in the ordinary School, and, as is already recognised,
special feeding and good lighting. Added to this should
be the proviso that efforts to push the child's education and make
him or her "a credit to their teachers" is definitely harmful in
many of these cases. I should like to put another point to the
Education Committee, in connection with the cases of Eye
Disease.
The association of septic teeth, tonsils and adenoids, and eye
conditions is well recognised and treated in the Clinics at East
Ham, especially as being the cause of such conditions as
Phlyctenular Conjunctivitis, Chronic Blepharitis, and recurrent
Corneal Ulcers. Such conditions lead to much pain, and result in