View report page

24
(1) Cases referred by the Medical Inspector from routine
inspection for special examination or re-examination.
These include heart murmurs. To attempt to decide definitely
in school, the organic or functional nature of many of these is
usually to court disaster. Again, taking adenoids, one refers
nearly all cases where this condition is supected to the Inspection
Clinic where only complete examination can be thoroughly carried
out.
Lung cases, perhaps more than any, require quiet surroundings
for their accurate recognition, and it is invariably our practice
to refer these cases to the clinic for periodic observation, while it is
practically imposible to recognise the cause of deafness and the
conditions causing otorrhœa (discharging ears) without special
apparatus, such as could not be used in a school room.
(2) Cases recommended for treatment.
The value of a few minutes' quiet persuasion in the case of
many parents cannot be overestimated when the stage of recommending
treatment has been reached, and the Clinic is of great
value in watching the progress of cases after treatment has been
received.
The preceding classes of cases are those therefore which
attend on the instructions of the School Medical Officer himself, but
the largest number of new cases are—
(3) Those which are sent for opinion by the head teachers
when they are in doubt as to a child's fitness to be in class.
Until it was possible to visit such cases at home, many cases
of suspected infectious disease were sent to the Clinic, but during
the last quarter there was a marked diminution in the number of
these cases sent for opinion.
(4) The next class of cases are those sent by the School
Attendance Officers or by the Education Committee, the usual
question being the fitness to attend school, and the children excluded
on account of their verminous state may be included in this class.