CHILD WELFARE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 258, 28 September 1935, Page 14

CHILD WELFARE.

CONFERENCE IN MELBOURNE. DR. GUNN’S IMPRESSIONS. Important matters relative to child welfare, the result of neglecting the minor defects of conditions during school life, and malnutrition, were discussed at a special conference of school medical officers held in Melbourne recently, said Dr. Elizabeth Gunn, schools medical officer of the Wanganui Education Board, in an interview' on her return this week. So far as malnutrition was concerned, said Dr. Gunn, it was impossible to compare figures for Australia with those of New Zealand. Statistics w T ere not taken on the same, lines, making the New Zealand figures very much larger, which was not the case. In Australia cases of malnutrition alone were considered, so that if a child had any other disease which caused malnutrition it came under that heading and not under malnutrition. It was soundly established that un-der-feeding was only one, and a very small one, of the many causes which contributed to the condition popularly known as malnutrition. The most common causes were physical defects which could be corrected only by medical attention. Dr Edilston Pope, of the New South Wales Education Department, had said at the conference that, contrary to popular belief, under-feeding and want of food were not the principal causes of malnutrition in Australia. Adenoids, tonsils and the effect of environment were more vicious. Strangely enough, theso were not the prinepal causes of malnutrition in children .during the period of financial stress. While taking part in this discussion Dr Gunn had stated that she had never known cases of malnutrition caused by want of food. It was sometimes wrong feeding, and over-excitement, very often found in the only child, who was neurotic and spoilt. Visits were paid to special schools in Melbourne, said Dr Gunn, the most luxurious of which is the Macßobertson Jubilee High School. Nearly 600 girls attend this modern school which is most impressive with its up-to-date classrooms, open corridors, art rooms, rest rooms, gymnasium, well equipped lecture hall, cafeteria and luncheonroom. “It is a school which makes one very envious,” said Dr Gunn.

The latest methods of treating stammering had been demonstrated at the conference by Dr Garnet Leary, who had children he had never seen before talking without stuttering after half an hour’s instruction. The first week of the conference had been nothing but work, whereas the annual meeting of the British Medical Association was delightful work, interspersed with main social events. “It was a privilege to be present at such a meeting,” said Dr Gunn. “Eighteen hundred to two thousand doctors were present and when most of these were joined by their wives ami visitors, the number present was somewhere in the vicinity of three thousand. The Victorian branch is certainly to be congratulated on the wonderful- organisation of these functions.”