THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1913. CHILDREN'S HEALTH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 11 February 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1913. CHILDREN'S HEALTH.

The ■ report ■ of Sir George Xewmau, the Chief Medical Officer of the English Board of Education, which was recently published, contains information concerning the health and general conditions of the children in 'elementary schools which should be carefully considered by all who are capable of influencing public opinion with regard to them. The London Times, in. a reCent issue, states that the law now requires that every child attending an elementary -school shall be medically examined at first entrance and at leaving. About a million and a half of children have been .dealt with 1 in each war since the passing of the Act ; a.nd the result- has been to bring to light a deplorable amount of malnutrition and of disease among those who are growing up to take, the place of the existing generation of workers. A table in the report sets forth the physical condition of iS(i.OS2 children in thirteen counties and in sixteen urban areas, and in only one of these, the urban area of Hurton-upon-'lVent. did. the percentage of "good" nutrition roach 15. In Brighton it reached •11. and there, wore four cases cut of the twenty-nine of from 31 to 35 per cent. Of course these figures, which express, in the judgment of different inspectors, tho corresponding proportions of normal. Mib-normal, and bad conditions, cannot be referred to any absolute standard. At the .same time it- is manifest that everything which, falls short- of being ''good" must, entail upon the child an increased degree of vulnerability to tuberculosis and other diseases. Somewhat more precise figures are given as regards London, where out of over i?f)(),(KK) children examined, during .the year more t-lia.n. hall' were found to be defective, over were roeomniend<k\ for treatment, and over 27,0(10 wvro actually treated a-', hospitals or { clinics' under arrangements made by the County Council. It is, we think, fairly manifest t'hat an enormous proportion *of the illnesses of childhood are the direct effects of malnutrition : and that this, which in a certain proportion of cases is due in the great majority mainly to ignorance of the relative values of foodstuffs and of the means of using them effectively and economically. Such ignorance it should be one of the chief aims of the

school to disped. Of not loss importance Lhan mamfe«t disease of tins or that description is the enormous .proportion of ivnab, for want of a better u'l-in, is (.oiimionly called "iee'ii-.-

iiiinucdnoss." it is. iuiposs:iih> to arrive at any exact knowledge- oi t.io number of ehildreu who couid fairly bo de-scribed as "fejble-niinded." V> e can only say that Mr George ..Newman estimates tnem at abe.uo wiio-jiUil p-v cent, of all scholars, or apprc-Mnuu-o-ly 2/',WX) in England and n ales, and says that from one-fifth to one-seventh of them are of such low grades as to be uneducable. The question is one which cries out for scientific investigation ; but the high probability is that the uneducable cases are, as a rule, examples of imperfect development or absolute malformation, of the brain, and that the educablo are children in whom brain activity has been chocked by the want of some element necessary to its perfection a want possibly due to the. defective action of some internal gland, tho secretion of which should minister to brain nutrition. After provision has been made for tho safe custctly of the uneducable properI tion cf these unfortunates, there will still remain twenty thousand of thorn, more or less, to whom it would be di/lictilt or impossible to apply restraint. They are likely, in the cour-so of their lives, to leavo behind them, say, twice their number of inheritors of their defects. At the very least, their descendants will hp people whose whole lives can scarcely fail to be blighted by the circumstances under which they were commenced, and whose effect upon the surrounding population, like that of a stone dropped into water, will extend itself in everwidening circles. The facts which arc now disclosed show that the health of tho children of the labouring classes is extensively defective, so extensively defective, indeed, as to amount to a serious national evil'; and the general causes of its defectiveness are not far to -seek. They arise from conditions of feeding, housing, and over-crowding which are universally condemned, and which gain inuch cf their potency from the fact that those who are subject to them are too often indifferent to their existence and ignorant of their effects. Tho ''baity's comforter," the sale of which ought to bo prohibited | by law, hay. probably been responsible for ln-vo deaths than any disease which, is noted by the Registrar- ! General; and its use in t:l:n main a >consequence of ignorance. Tt is too , much to expect that tho .schools, | which have, rendered possible the identification of so tmicli disease, will some day turn their attention to pre{venting if, and to imparting knowledge of tho elements of domestic management and of sanitation, rather than of subjects which the pupils are 1 not likely to have any opportunities of , bringing into practical or useful apI plication ?