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examined is found fairly well. It is impossible to either deny or
affirm the truth of the parents' statement. Again, many children
are intermittently absent, the parents alleging such complaints as
asthma, epilepsy, sick headache and so forth, which recur from time
to time only.
In such cases it is almost impossible for a medical
officer who sees the child only in periods of good health to express
a positive opinion as to the actual facts, and the onus of proof
should be on the parents, the non-production of a certificate or
statement from the medical man alleged to be in attendance during
the attacks, regarded as evidence of their unreality.
Under the existing scheme the physical examination of
children attending school who are not alleged or suspected to be
suffering from disease has hardly been attempted.
But the issue of the recent memorandum from the Board of
Education clearly indicates the lines on which in the future the
routine examination of all scholars is to be carried out, and some
considerable amplification of the present system is thereby made
necessary.
The matter will no doubt be considered in due course by the
Surrey County Council (the Education Authority for this district),
and a fuller scheme elaborated.
In the meantime it is interesting and significant to note that
the Board of Education attaches the greatest importance to the
co-ordination of medical inspection, etc., of scholars with the work
of the existing public health service. There is no doubt but that
this work of school and scholar inspection will be performed in the
future under the direction of County or District Medical Officers of
Health, as has been consistently urged by some of us for
years past.