FRENCH EXPERIMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1939, Page 6

FRENCH EXPERIMENT

WOOL AND CHILD HEALTH. SOME CONVINCING FIGURES. The results of a remarkable series of observations, extending over two years, as to the influence of woollen underwear on the health of school children in Paris have been conveyed to the Society of Comparative Pathology of France. Flannel undergarments were issued to a proportion of children in different age groups at twelve selected kindergartens in the poorer district of Paris and in certain rural schools for older children. The ages of the children in these experiments ranged from 2 to 6 years at the kindergartens and from 6t014 at the rural schools. The children selected for the experiment were in general the more weakly and debilitated in the several groups. The remaining children who did not receive wool under-garments served as controls for the experiment. The effects of the wearing of wool (flannel) was determined primarily by comparing the average number of days’ absence from school in the two groups. The results which are given for individual schools and then summarised as a whole are as follows: Total number of children in the experiments, 938; children with wool underwear, average days absent from school, 8.98; children without wool underwear. average days absent from school, 21.58.