[Report 1921] / School Medical Officer of Health, Reading County Borough.

  • Reading (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1921] / School Medical Officer of Health, Reading County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SPECIAL SCHOOLS. I am indebted to Dr. J. A. P. Price for the following report on the Special Schools :— The numbers in attendance, admitted and discharged during the year are as follows : Mentally Defective School. Physically Defective School. Open-air School. Boys. Girls. Boys. Girls. Boys. Girls. On roll January, 1921 ... 51 26 27 15 27 22 Admitted during the year 14 8 3 6 12 11 Left during the year 11 4 3 2 12 7 On roll December, 1921 54 30 27 19 27 26 (n) Physically Defective School. The children in attendance suffered from one or other of the following defects (1) Defective vision .. 5 (6) Heart disease ... 7 (2) Defective hearing ... .. 6 (7) Talipes ... 1 (3) Joint disease (tuberculous) 3 (8) Rickets 2 (4) Spinal disease— (9) Adenitis (T.B.) ... 2 Caries .. 4 (10) Cretinism ... 1 Lateral curvature o O (11) Pituitarism ... .. 1 (5) Nervous diseases—■ (12) General delicac}^ etc. 5 Infantile paralysis .. 11 Many of these children are. or have been, patients at the Royal B srkshire Hospital, chiefly attending the Orthopaedic Clinic and when necessar}^ admitted into the Hospital for operative or other treatment. The cordial co-operation of the staff of the Hospital has contributed materially to the efficiency of this school. An effort should be made to still further extend the advantages this school affords by providing for the present needs of those deaf children who cannot, for financial or other reasons, be admitted into special schools for the deaf (vide recent instruction of the Board of Education). Two of the teachers at least are capable of teaching lip-reading and workshops are to hand. All that is further needed is the permission of the Board of Education to take into the school deaf children at a younger age than 7 years. (b) The Open Air School for Tuberculous Children. Of the 72 children attending during the year, 40 were definitely tuber¬ culous and 32 doubtfully so. A chart is kept of the children’s temperatures morning and evening, and of their weights and heights. The temperatures recorded are more erratic than those of ordinary children, but although con¬ siderable rise and fall of temperature could be really traced to aggravation of chest or other tubercular trouble, they were in the main due to minor ailments, such as sore throat, tonsillitis, ordinary colds, etc. The weight chart shewed a decrease in summer and an increase during the cold months ; this variation
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