[Report 1936] / School Medical Officer of Health, Smethwick County Borough.

  • Smethwick (Worcestershire, England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1936] / School Medical Officer of Health, Smethwick County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/56 (page 11)
    W e are told it does them rood. Ts an hour’s soaking in the rain g'ood exercise for a child of 12?. Does it do a hoy more i^ood to deliver ne\vs])apers than to play football or to swiny or to i)lay other games? Doubtless our forebears were told that the half-time system in the mills of Lancashire in the last century was good for the children, and that it made men of them. Doubtless it did— old men ! The standard which your medical officers exact in their examinations of children for ])art-time em])loyment is a high one. d'he children must be in the first of the f(nir categories of nutrition—namely, excellent. It thus frequently happens that children of normal physi([ue and nutrition, with no physical defects are turned down. 3. Aleasles and Whooping Cough. A number of children who have been diagnosed as undernourished are found to have suffered from measles or whooping cough. In these cases it is found that the disease has not cleared up completely and has been followed by a more or less lengthy period of ill health and malnutrition. The care and treatment of such children is very important, for if they are neglected, they are liable to develop a chronic lung conditi(jn—pulmonary catarrh, bronchiectasis, etc., which not only kee[)s them below par, but lowers their resistance to pneumonia and tuberculosis. 4. Large families. It is not at all surprising to find that many of the cases of malnutrition come from large families. Mr. Rowntree’s recent researches show that in York when he carried out his investigations (and probably everywhere else) a substantial proportion of families with three, four and more children were li\ing below the minimum subsistence level. This raises the im})ortant cpiestion of children’s allowances, but as much has been written on the subject within the past few weeks 1 do not pro])ose to discuss the question here. In ])assing how¬ ever. I would like to stress the fact that quite often very material im})rovement could be eflfected in the nutrition of the family if the mother had a more complete knowledge of relative food values. The information is available for all, but relatively few are interested. I would like to take this opportunity of thank'ing mv colleagues for their very valued help in the work of the school medical service, and more especially the teachers, hh'om what has been said above it will be ob\ious that the special surveys can oidy be full}' successful if they receive the full and enthusi¬ astic suj)porl of the teachers in the schools. Loth heads and assistants have co-operated most generously, and ha\e shown