[Report 1937] / School Medical Officer of Health, Cambridgeshire County Council.

  • Cambridgeshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1937] / School Medical Officer of Health, Cambridgeshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/48 (page 7)
    Tc is perliaps too early to say to what tliis may be due, l)iit it may bfj hoped that, in spite of tlie fact that it was oidy in existence for rdne months of the year 1937, the routine inspectiiMi now carried out by the school nurses may already be beginning to have an effect. The 20 children found to have uncleardy bodies at routine inspection were in the proportion of 0.8 ])er cent., com])ared with 1.5 per cent, in 1930 and 4.0 per cent, in 1935, so that tliis conditioi\ appears to be .steadily declining. None of the cases was actually infested with body lice. Visual Defects.—The figures for refractive errors, including cases of squint, for the past five years are as follows: — 1933. 1934. 1935. 1936. 1937. Ecferred for Treatment: Iloutine 64 84 70 102 142 Specially presented 20 27 15 18 27 Fur Observation : ' Routine 184 165 138 272 Specially i^resented 23 36 11 32 19 Once again the steady increase in the figure for these conditions is to be noted. In 1930 the opinion was expressed that there had evidently been some ditference in the standard of examination as between that year and previous years, but as the same observer was responsible for the majority of the figures in 1930 and 1937 it seems doubtful whether this can be considered a complete explanation. If the rise is a real one, its magnitude is somewhat disquieting and some investigation as to the reason would appear to be required. It may* be, however, that the increasing part played by the school medical service in the treatment of these conditions is a partial explanation, in that children who might formerly have been taken elsewhere for treatment now wait for the advice of the Assistant School Medical Officer on the subject. The number of cases of external eye disease is, on the whole, slightly less than that for the previous year and there has again been no outbreak of conjunctivitis. Nose and Throat ]')efects.—The total number of cases of chronic tonsillitis discovered (routine and special) with or without accompanying adenoids, was 307 as against 221 in the previous year. Based on routine inspection only the percentages for this and pievious years are as follows—1934, 3.4 per cent.; 1935, 4.6 per cent.; 1936, 7.7 per cent. : and 1937, 1() 8 per cent. This figure also appears to be a steadily increasing one and the explanation is not apparent. The difficulty of deciding precisely what constitutes chronic tonsillitis may have some bearing on the matter and it would seem that the alteration of the nomenclature which took place a few years ago may have had an opposite effect to that intended. The alteration referred to is that from “ enlarged tonsils ” to the present chronic tonsillitis.” Doubtless the Board of Education considered that the old term covered many trivial conditions and endeavoured to eliminate some of them by narrowing the field, but at least there could be little controversy as to what constituted an enlarged tonsil, while there ma.y be much as to the