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vi.
There are many congenital or acquired defects in children that are not
suspected and not found unless specially looked for, and some of them are
of a very serious nature. If a child is apparently in good health few parents
would consider it necessary to have it examined for abnormalities, yet the
defect may be there, and when later on it has made itself apparent, a cure
may be far more difficult or perhaps impossible.
In most Schools, other than pnblic elementary ones, every boy or girl on
entry is carefully examined by the School Doctor as a matter of routine,
or a report on the child's physical condition is sent by the family medical
attendant. Amongst the poor this is seldom done, for it is nobody's duty
unless the education authority undertakes it.
The matter is really of national importance, for there can be few if any
doctors whose business has been to examine recruits for the Army who have
not been struck by the large number of young men who have to be rejected
on account of some, physical defect that might have been remedied if it had
been discovered in childhood. This aspect of the question is perhaps somewhat
out of place here just at present; I only refer to it to point out that the
medical inspection of children is a matter of more than mere local interest.
Both the Royal Commission on Physical Training and the Committee on
Physical Deterioration reported very definitely on its importance from a national
point of view.
I have no desire to enter too fully into medical details, but it might
perhaps be useful to discuss a few general defects that appear to me to call
particularly for investigation. Three of these are obvious, namely, eyesight,
hearing and teeth.
Eyesight. Certain defects, such as squint, cataract, etc., are so easily
recognised that the parent cannot fail to notice them. It is the functional
defect that has to be searched for, and most of these functional faults are errors
of refraction that cannot be noticed or detected except by a skilled observer.
A child may be long-sighted or short-sighted, and still be able to see apparently
as well as any other normal child of similar age, but he is only able to do
this by an unconscious exertion of muscular power in accommodating the eye.
In other words, it is only by extra exertion that this child is able to focus