[Report 1953] / School Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council, Scarborough Divisional Executive.

  • North Riding of Yorkshire (England). County Council (Scarborough Divisional Executive)
Date:
1953
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1953] / School Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council, Scarborough Divisional Executive. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/72 page 16
    No. of children taking meals and milk at school in October, 1953. Meals Milk Free For payment Secondary Scarborough division 252 1,134 1,460 Remainder of Riding 567 4,051 6,403 Primary Scarborough division 470 1,798 4,052 Remainder of Riding 2,163 15,475 27,527 Total 3,452 22,458 39,442 Cleanliness. The school nurses paid a total of 2,332 visits to schools in the Riding for the purpose of carrying out cleanliness inspections. They made 169,959 ) examinations ; most school children being examined three times during the i year. Although a rather increased number of inspections were carried out, | there was a slight reduction in the number of children found to be infested.’ As in foimer years, the great majority of the children were found at each ! examination to be completely free from infestation. A number of children however, were repeatedly found to be infested. The presence of these persistent offendeis constitutes a danger to the other children with whom they come in contact, the effect of which is only minimised by the constant vigilance of the school nursing staff. The efforts of the school nurses in relation to children whose heads quickly become re-infested after cleansing are rendered more difficult by the fact that so frequently the source of rein¬ festation lies outside the school. Parents, older sisters who have left school, and pre-school children with verminous heads are not subject to supervision or treatment. There are those medical officers of health who consider that legislation similar to the Scabies Order, 1941, now repealed, should be introduced to authorise the medical officer of health to insist on verminous persons, inespective of age, submitting themselves for cleansing or treatment. Meantime, at least one school medical officer m the Riding, in his capacity of medical officei of health of a sanitary district, has made a practical approach ] to the problem by arranging for his sanitary inspectors to visit the homes of all children who are persistently found to be verminous. The inspectors advise the parents on methods of cleansing and invite them to attend the health clinic for examination and, if necessary, cleansing. Apart from verminous conditions of the scalp, the school nurse also pays attention to the cleanliness of the child s person. In general I am able to report that a high standard was maintained.
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