The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1914. HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 266, 8 April 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1914. HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN.

"If by the establishment of a sehoo! medical branch we can remove a fair percentage of juvenile defects before they become permanent any expense involved will bo repaid a thousandfold.' Such are the wofds used by a New South Wales Minister, Mr. Carmichael, with reference to the first annual report of the principal medical officer of the State, Dr Willis, on the result of the work of inspection carried out during the year. How urgently this medical inspection was needed is evidenced by the fact that out of 25,638 pupils examined 59 per cent, had defects which needed treatment. The three leading sources of trouble are the eyes, teeth, and mental deficiency. The scheme of work carried out by the modical staff is very comprehensive, and includes the investigation of epidemics, delivering lectures at training colleges, inspection of school buildings, leotures to the senior girls at all the metropolitan schools on the care of babies, cleanliness, home hygiene, sicknursing etc., lectures to parents, medical examination of candidates for admission to the teaching service, giving free treatment in the back country schools to the eyes of scholars suffering from opthalmia, and instructing the parents and children regarding future treatment and prevention, also supplying those children with sufficient drugs to carry on the treatment. An important suggestion made by Dr Willis is that it will be a very great advantage to have a uniform scheme throughout tlfe whole of Australasia, the school examinations being conducted in a uniform manner, and common standards adopted regarding the defects discovered. There is every probability that much practical benefit would accrue from uniform action in this important matter. New Zealand is just a3 much interested in the end in view as is New South Wales. Humanity demands that some organised effort Bhould be made to put an end to the sufferings of school children, especially where preventive means aro available,. A yery large number of the defects in children belong to the class of ailments which arise from the ignorance, carelessness, or callousness of parents, but there is one serious problem to be fiiced whick may not prove so easy of solution —th# treatment of mental defects. Dr. Willis considers that it is necessary to provide at least one school for mentally defective children, the main difficulty to bo overcome being the question of transport of such children to and from school. The presence of one weau-mind-ed child in any school is a source of trouble to the teachers, the scholar?, and the unfortunate victim of circumstances, but until provision is made for these defective children the trouble is likelj' to grow. The New South Wales Government is facing this matter in the right spirit, and it is to be hoped that New Zealand will follow suit. A start has been made in the Dominion to cope with the matter, but only on a limited scale. The truth of Mr. Carmichael's opinion that ''any expense involved will lie repaid a thousandfold" is self evident. To take this work in hand is no mere fad: it is building up an asset the value of which is beyond all calculation.