[Report 1929] / School Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council.

  • Shropshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1929] / School Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    can be more appropriately dealt with by him. The Assistant School Medical Officers, therefore have every opportunity of keeping in touch with those children under five years of age, and also with those over that age, who are under the necessity of attending one or other of the various clinics. The co-ordination with the Tuberculosis Scheme is also very close, and arrangements are in force whereby a child, whose physical condition is such as to render the opinion of a Tuberculosis Officer advisable, can readily be referred to him for examination, and for continued supervision and re-examination, if such is considered necessary or desirable. By these various arrangements the care of the debilitated children under school age is adequately provided for, especially as the health visitors, who attend the Child Welfare and Tuberculosis Clinics, are also responsible for the School Nursing. HYGIENIC CONDITION OF THE SCHOOLS. In a county such as Shropshire, in which about one-half of the population is in Rural Districts, the other half being in Urban Districts, it naturally follows that there are great differences in the hygienic condition of the schools, of which there were 277 at the end of the year. The size of the schools varies so greatly, and the means of making provision for sanitation differ so much with the locality, that nothing like uniformity is obtainable, and in certain instances there is ample room for improvement. Gradual but steady progress in this respect is, however, being made, and each year sees advances not only in the provision of sanitary arrangements and water supplies, but also in the matter of heating, lighting and ventilation. Two new schools are at present being built, and others are being renovated and re-constructed. In certain of the older schools the design of the class-rooms is so bad that the distance across is greater than that from back to front, the result being that, if the teacher is to get all the children comfortably within his field of vision, it is necessary to crowd all the desks as far as possible into one half of the floor-space. Such an arrangement is extremely bad, as it does not permit of proper spacing of the children and is conducive to the spread of infectious disease, which is, as a rule, conveyed from one child to another through the inhalation of air contaminated very often by infected particles sprayed into the atmosphere as a result of coughing. The importance, therefore, not only of adequate spacing of the children, but also of ample ventilation will be apparent in order to flush out the vitiated atmosphere and replace it with fresh air. This can only be obtained if in addition to proper ventilation there are also satis¬ factory means for heating. The problems of heating and ventilation cannot be considered separately, as they are one and the same, and the final solution must always result in a compromise. Ventilation which promotes a feeling of chilliness by lowering the body temperature depresses the vitality, and is unsatisfactory in that it renders the child susceptible to any infection with which it comes in contact. Warmth which is provided at the expense of adequate ventilation is equally harmful, in that it is obtained by shutting out fresh air, which leads to vitiation of the atmosphere of the class room and probable loading of it with infective material. The more fresh air a child obtains the better, but the means of heating the school must be such that the debilitated and weakly children can maintain the normal body temperature ; otherwise the results are likely to be harmful. It is difficult to find fault with a teacher who on a cold winter day keeps all the windows closed in an effort to heat the school, when the only means of heating the class-rooms is by means of a fire placed in one corner, especially, as is frequently the case, if the fire-place is of faulty construction. The ideal is an open-air school, but except on the warmest days in the summer such an ideal can only be obtained if new methods of keeping the children warm are employed. It must be recognised that it is impossible to provide adequate ventilation unless steps are taken to keep the children comfortably warm, especially if they are underclothed or underfed.