The public health movement.

  • American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The public health movement. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    THE PHYSICAL CARE OF CHH.DREN By Walter S. Cornell, M.D., Neurologist to the Division of School Inspection, Department of Public Health and Charities, Philadelphia. The physical care of children has developed from the aca- demic subject of school hygiene taught by pedagogues, with in- accurate knowledge and weak force, into several well-developed specialized lines of work, each an active force. Chief among these are the medical inspection of school children, the provision of playgrounds and free medical treatment, and the enactment of laws calculated to prevent, or at least decrease, child labor. Taking up these subjects seriatim, and considering first the medical inspection of children in the schools, we find its reason for existence in the fact that the eight years of school life offer the only opportunity to the community to examine all its mem- bers. Such inspection has a double interest, that of the physical health of the community and that of the intelligence of the com- munity, since doctors have come to realize that physical health is a strong factor for or against mental development. The medical inspection of school children was first insti- tuted in America, on a large scale, by the health department of the city of New York, which, in 1905, appointed medical inspec- tors to examine all of the school children of the city. I am glad to say that the first honor of medical inspection apparently be- longs to my own city of Philadelphia, whose board of education many years ago, at the instance of Dr. Samuel D. Risley, com- missioned him and three other physicians to test the vision of the children in the schools. Unfortunately, however, a certain opposition developed on the part of the parents, and for want of vigorous championship the work was allowed to drop. Since that time, in various cities, directors of school inspection have succeeded in having the work done upon a small scale; but the comprehensive svstem instituted in New York, which has already been mentioned, marks the first noteworthy and permanent step along this line. U87)