[Report 1951] / School Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council, Scarborough Divisional Executive.

  • North Riding of Yorkshire (England). County Council (Scarborough Divisional Executive)
Date:
1951
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1951] / School Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council, Scarborough Divisional Executive. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Cleanliness. In all 2,214 visits were paid to schools by nurses carrying out cleanliness surveys and 156,536 examinations were made ; in addition 2,205 home visits were made ensuing out of these survevs. The vast majority of children seen at school medical inspections were once more found to be clean and completely free from any form of infestation. As I have already pointed out the modern treatment of pediculosis is comparatively simple, and is extremely j efficient. It is, therefore, disappointing to have to report that there was an : increase in the total number of individual pupils found to be infested. ] Cases of this sort v/ere not, of course, uniformly distributed throughout the j Riding. One assistant school medical officer states that he found the infest¬ ation rate remarkably high at the beginning of the year, but reports that due i to a special effort on the part of the nurses, the position was considerably > improved by the end of the year. There is no doubt that some mothers take >. the erroneous view that so long as no actual vermin are found in their child’s hair, a few nits do not matter. They fail to realise that these nits will soon t hatch out unless treated and spread to the other children in the class. An t important aspebt of the problem is that older girls in particular are frequently jjj found to be infested at the beginning of school terms. The work of the n nurses in this direction is greatly assisted when these older children are j; encouraged to take an interest in their personal appearance and personal jj cleanliness, before they leave school. There was again a reduction in the incidence of scabies. A very slight c increase occurred in the incidence of impetigo. The total incidence of ringworm again fell during 1951, although in certain parts of the county an appreciable number of cases were encountered. : i The assistant school medical officers work in close co-operation with the r consultant dermatologists with regard to continuation of treatment and follow- v up of cases. Immediately after the diagnosis of the first cases in a school, tc surveys of the other children were undertaken using Wood’s Light and in [j this way spread of the condition was controlled. Clothing and Footwear. The clothing and footwear worn by the children were once again of a satisfactory standard and adequate in quality. Children were, however, seen from time to time, the repair of whose clothing had not received sufficient n attention. The wearing of gum boots throughout the school day was b discouraged. Following up. The school nursing service continued to play an important part in the scheme for medical inspection and treatment of the school population.