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(6) Some restrictions with regard to exercise, games, and bathing practised during the period with the majority of girls —87 per cent, of school girls, and 76 per cent, of students. (7) Home study : For the school girls 11 per cent, three hours or more ; for the students, 23 per cent, four hours or more. (For high-school girls the average amount of home study was two hours ; the shortest none, the longest three to four hours. Two girls were found working for Matriculation examination averaging six hours' study daily for five months. Of the school girls generally 12 per cent, worked from three to four hours nightly. For the students the average study hours were 3-16, the shortest being half an hour, the longest seven hours : 65 per cent, worked on an average of three hours or more home study.) (8) Sleep : The average hours of sleep for both school girl and student was eight hours. (For the school girls the average amount of sleep was 8-6 hours, the shortest six hours, the longest eleven hours. For the students the average amount of sleep was 8-5 hours, the shortest five hours, the longest ten hours. It would appear that too much study and too little sleep are factors to be considered.) (9) Constipation a factor to be considered. (10) Nutrition : Normal in 70 per cent.; subnormal in 12 per cent. Recommendations. There is need for the care and supervision of the young girl through puberty, adolescence, to young womanhood. Overtaxing of the bodily strength with study, too great mental strain, too little sleep, lack of practice of the laws of general hygiene, may produce irreparable injury affecting both body and mind. The recommendation is " supervision and an intermediate course for all work and play." With regard to the menstrual period itself there is still to be noted the greater percentage of regular dysmenorrhoea in the older girls, faulty hygienic habits being practised in that a great proportion are still being advised not to bathe and a smaller number not to indulge in activities at all during the period. With the education of the parent and girl that this is a normal physiological function, that as Dr. Sanderson Clow says she may bathe, exercise, play tennis, hockey, &c. (provided overstrain is avoided) from the beginning to the end of the period, the decrease in regular pain will occur. Mrs. Clow in thirteen years gives a reduction in those girls suffering from dysmenorrhoea from 46-7 to 10-8 per cent. She says " Given free scope we could, I believe, abolish all menstrual suffering in girls under eighteen years." I would recommend the measures advocated by the Medical Women's Federation in their leaflet with regard to menstruation. There is no doubt that the problem of prevention of menstrual troubles lies in the hands of the parent, school mistress, and school doctor. PART V.—OBSERVATIONS ON PHYSICAL CONDITION AND POSTURAL DEFORMITIES OF NEW ZEALAND SCHOOL-CHILDREN. By Dr. Mary Champtaloup, School Medical Officer, Auckland. Incidence of Postural Deformities. The incidence of postural deformity was estimated by observation alone. The judgment even of the same observer tends to vary. To guard against this, wherever possible some arbitrary standard was fixed. Deviations from correct posture were classed as follows : Class 1, Slight deviation. Class 2, Definite deviation ; insufficient to be classed as deformity. Class 3, Marked deviation, classed as deformity. Class 4, Very marked deviation. The deformity of forward head : In Class 3 a perpendicular line from the chin passed through the lower end of the sternum. In Class 4 a perpendicular from the chin passed anterior to the whole chest. Deformity of the flat chest: In Class 3, in profile, the tips of shoulders were in the same plane as the chest. In Class 4, in profile, the tips of the shoulders were anterior to the chest. In flat foot: In Class 3 the inner border of the foot lay very close to the floor. In Class 4 the inner border of the foot lay flat on the floor and there was prominence of the scaphoid. In other deformities it was not possible to fix such a definite standard, but Classes 3 and 4 were of a corresponding degree of severity. In estimating the incidence of deformity Classes 1 and 2 have been considered merely as deviations about the normal. Only Classes 3 and 4, with marked postural deformity, have been included in the figures.
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