[Report 1939] / School Medical Officer of Health, Liverpool.

  • Liverpool (England). Council.
Date:
1939
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1939] / School Medical Officer of Health, Liverpool. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/60 (page 10)
    is realised that the numbers concerned approximated the numbers attending a Wembley Cup Final. Quite clearly to have examined and cleansed, where necessary, such enormous numbers of individuals would have taken so long that it would have caused a complete breakdown in the transport arrangements as planned. It might be thought that in anticipation of probable evacuation that for some weeks previously special efforts should have been made to inspect and cleanse, where necessary, the proposed evacuees, but for some weeks prior to the commencement of evacuation the schools had all been closed for the summer vacation. Furthermore, during: the last weeks of August when the inter- ' O O national situation was appearing more serious it wvas considered advisable, because of the probability of evacuation having to be carried out, to pay home visitations to those expectant mothers who had registered in previous months for evacuation, in order to obtain an up-to-date census. As nearly 4,000 visits had thus to be made, the staff of the Maternity and Child Welfare Health Visitors was inadequate for the purpose and every available school health visitor was loaned to them for a period of 12 days to assist in the work. With this assistance the revised census was successfully carried out in time, though the health visitors, in order to complete the work had to carry on until late in the evenings, and also work on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. Naturally during this intensive survey the usual work of the school nurses had of necessity to be largely suspended. 7. Ever since school medical work commenced in 1907 attention has been drawn to the prevalence of verminous infestation amongst school children in the school medical reports of every local education authority as well as in the annual reports of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education. The question might be asked, why after all these years such conditions continue to exist; the answer is that verminous infesta¬ tion is not confined to school children only, but is invariably a family affair. Experience has shewn that certain school children