[Report 1947] / School Medical Officer, Somerset County Council.

  • Somerset (England). County Council.
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1947] / School Medical Officer, Somerset County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/32 (page 21)
    In tlie coiuitiy as a wliole, lM])litlieria slill causes more deatlis aiiion^f school clhlclren than iiny other disease. ’I’he incidence o! 1 )i])hl heria in Somerset is now Muail hut, as immnnisal ion olTers an almosl complele |)rotecliou, its importance cannot he over-sti‘essed. During the Near, d,hdl children under school age and 81S children ot school agi' received their liist two injections. .pSoS children receiveil u '■refresher dose. HANDICAPPED PUPILS. S[)ecial School acconunodalion for Handica])ped I’npils is lametilahly short except in the case of blind and [)ai'tially sighted children who are reasonably well catered for. There is a long waiting list for the deaf and partially deaf, for delicate and diabetic children and above all for educationally sub-normal children. Some children have been waiting for years for a [)lace in a residential school, and in the meantime they are attending [)rimar\ or secondary schools where their education is limited not oidy by their own defects but by the lack of sjiecial facilities in such schools. The accommodation for ineducable children is practically non-existent. 'Phere is a ne^' movement afoot for the 2.)rovision of special education fcjr cases of spastic paralysis. Such cases, handicapped as they are, not only 2)hysicalty but nearly always mentally to a greater or lesser degree, have alwiiys been extremely difficult, and often impossible, to place. With a growing awareness of the need for catering for such children, new schools are being opened one by one in various parts of the cotmtry. One in Ivybridge, ])evon, will shortly be admitting cases and it is hoped that a proportion of these will be from Somerset.