CHILDREN'S HEALTH

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 16, 21 July 1921, Page 10

CHILDREN'S HEALTH

MEDICAL INSPECTION OF

SCHOOLS

IMPORTANCE OF DIET.

The meeting of the Education Board yesterday, had i variety. added to its business by the arrival of Dr. Wilkiiis, Director of the School Hygiene Division of the Public Health Department, who gave a short address on the medical inspection of schools. Early in the yeur. Dr. Wilkins said, the medical inspection of schools had been transferred from the Education Department to the Department of Health. There had been a feeling in some quarters that this was a mistake, but he was satisfied that the .change was a beneficial one. The inspection was thereby placed on a much better footing, and the help and co-operation of the other branches of the Public Health Department would be of great assistance. There remained the -need for keeping'in dose touch with the educational authorities, because the work of the inspectors was largely educational. The 00-operation o f the boards was essential, and 1 it was to interest the board in the work that he had come to tlia meeting. Dr. Wilkins explained that arrangements were being made for school medical officers to report monthly to the education boards on their work, 'as it was essential that the Boards should be kept interested in what was, being done;. It was pot sufficient to find defects in. the pupils; they should aim at prevention. To an enormous extent, the common defects and diseases prevalent among school children could" be prevented. This was especially the case in respect to defective te*th. Dr. Wilkins quoted the case of a school in Shropshire, where, before the war, the children with full, sound sets of teeth entering the school amounted to 5 per cent., while, after the war, owing to propaganda by th. s medical,officer and' the reducod consumption of "refined" foods under war conditions, the proportion rose to 44 per cent. If that could happen in a pooi- community, he felt that still better results could be obtained; in New Zealand. Effective propaganda was the foundation, of success. Several members of the board pnt questions to Dr. Wilkins, and a' lively discussion on dietetics arid otfier interesting aspects of children's health followed. One question, put by Mr. E. P. Rishworth, referred to the increasing prevalence of spinal curvature, •of contagious sores, and 6f pulmonary affections and catarrh. Dr. Wilkins declared that such troubles were due more to defects in diet than to any other cause. Faulty : desks were blamed-for spinal curvature ; but all children who used the;.desks did not suffer. Defective diet rendered children susceptible to deformity,and to infection. Infectious sores were a sign of mal-nutrition, and the same was true of pulmonary'troubles, catarrh, adenoids, enlarged tonsils, and 'a host of^other ailments of the young. • \ The subject of dental treatment was discussed at some length. Mr. J. J. Clarke suggested that in the. country children could be better treated by means of a travelling dental surgery than by being brought to town. Dr. Wilkins said there was one dental ambulance; but there was, so much work for dentists among adults that the difficulty was to find men to. do the work among the children. Many dentists had come forward in a very public-spirited way, but their services had to be taken on their own terms as to where they I wonld work.