The healthy school child / Life Conservation Service of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company.

Date:
1940
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The healthy school child / Life Conservation Service of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ry i. 4 Ye Phealthy School’Chid ing physical defects that might hinder the child’s progress in school. Today the medical examinations retain this function but they have an added use when they educate children and parents. This means that, to be of greatest value, the examination should be made preferably in the presence of the mother, but certainly the findings must be interpreted to her by the doctor or nurse. To do this well, it becomes impossible to go hastily over great num- bers of youngsters. So, the current practice is tending toward less frequent but more thorough examinations, and to encourage examinations by the family physician wherever parents are willing to have this done. Certainly each child should be examined before he is enrolled in school. This is the object of the “Summer Round-up” so ably fostered by parent-teacher associations. During the child’s stay in the first four grades it is planned nowadays that he have at least two health inventories, preferably with annual inspections of sight and hearing and semi-annual dental examinations. When Physical Defects Are Found It is evident that periodic medical inspections are of little value unless something is done to correct the bodily defects that are revealed. Strangely enough it is the follow-up of the examinations to induce parents to give their children the benefit of their physician’s care that takes most of the time that the school nurse can devote to home visits. Treatment of physical defects is not a school function; that should be done by the family physician, or at the clinic, and by the dentist. The school, however, has an interest in each child’s condition for, as was said at the beginning, education is largely wasted upon a child who is below par. So, the school nurse shoulders the burden of persuading parents to give their children needed care. If she calls on you, receive her cordially and give heed to her suggestions.
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