[Report 1908] / School Medical Officer of Health, Lowestoft Borough.

  • Lowestoft (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1908] / School Medical Officer of Health, Lowestoft Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/138 (page 151)
    (e) The housing conditions and the home circumstances of the children attending the Public Elementary Schools may be described as good. There are not many instances of neglectful parents. The condition of the Cottage property is also good, with the exception of some of the cottages situated on what is known as the North Beach, and a few habitations, the address of which may be described as at the rear of such and such a street or such and such a cottage. (F) Review of the methods employed for the treatment for defects. Reference has already been made, in detail, to this matter, in a previous portion of the Report. It is, however, common knowledge with people who have to do with School children that such diseases as Discharging Ears, Ringworm and some forms of Skin Diseases are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to cure and have to be under treatment for several months or perhaps years. The parents of the children thus afflicted are apt to become tired of the continual worry and interference with their work necessitated by continual visits to Medical men or Charitable Institutions, and when a child appears, after about eight months treatment in a case of say Ringworm, to be a lot better and the hair to have commenced to grow over the patches, to assume that the child is cured, to leave off treatment, and send the child again to school, whilst all the time the contagion is still existent. This, to a large extent, may be obviated by the establishment of a School Clinic. This latter procedure, in addition to furthering the treatment of the disease, would also give your S.M.O. more direct control over cases which are apparently cured but are still contagious. With reference to the employment of School Nurses it will be noted in a previous portion of the report, that, with the loyal co-operation of the parent and the teacher, the employment of a Nurse during the actual inspection of the children in the School, has been rendered superfluous. In connection with enlisting the services of the District Nursing Associations for the treatment of children in their own homes found to be defective, there has been some corres¬ pondence with the Board of Education and I entirely agree with the Board that no Nurse should be allowed to treat any defect whatever, except under the control of a Medical Practitioner and from what has hitherto been written with reference to the facilities for obtaining such supervision, I maintain that this is the only way in which the District, or other Nurses can be profitably employed in treatment.