SCHOOL CLINICS 



5°3 



Table I 



School A : lower East Side, good 

 co-operation 



School B : neighborhood of 30th 

 Street and 2d Avenue — bad 

 co-operation 



School C: uptown well-to-do 

 district 



School 1) : upper East Side near 

 a dispensary 



Defective 



Vision, 



Per Cent. 



75 



55 



90 

 85 



Defective 



Nasal 

 Breathing, 

 Per Cent. 



100 



63 

 91 

 95 



Enlarged 



Tonsils, 



Per Cent. Primary, 



Per Cent. 



95 



70 



80 

 82 



Teeth. 



17 

 .4 



Permanent, 

 Per Cent. 



90 



28 

 56 

 35 



The numbers of other defects are too small to be of use for compara- 

 tive purposes. The table shows that eye troubles receive treatment in 55 

 to 90 per cent, of cases and that adenoids and tonsils are attended to in 

 from 63 to 100 per cent, of cases. Evidently special stress, at times too 

 much stress, is being laid on this class of defects. It is instructive to 

 note that at times with full cooperation of the school authorities it is 

 possible to attain 100 per cent, of treatments in certain classes of ail- 

 ments. Teeth present the poorest showing as to amount of attention 

 and treatment given, even in the well-to-do section of the city. 



As has been already mentioned, reported treatment and actual results 

 should be regarded as two distinct statistical categories. Under existing 

 conditions, figures of treatments should be taken with great reservation 

 as an indication of efficiency of results attained by medical inspection of 

 school children. The school health records indicate the number of cases 

 which in the opinion of the school doctor were cured or which improved 

 under the reported treatment. Tabulating these statistics, I find as far 

 as the cases are reported that, exclusive of teeth, out of 482 cases treated 

 only 204, or 42.3 per cent., have been cured, and 96 cases, or 20 per cent, 

 have improved. The remaining 37 per cent, are not recorded as cured 

 or improved. Granting that among the defective children under treat- 

 ment there were a number of incurable cases, and allowing for clerical 

 errors of omission, 38 or 30 or even 25 per cent, of non-cures and non- 

 improvements in school children is a very high percentage. Aside from 

 mere figures, experience shows that a large percentage of those reported 

 treated do not improve, a condition which calls for serious consideration 

 and which is due in a large measure to slipshod therapeutics in dispen- 

 saries as well as by some private physicians, especially in the poorer sec- 

 tions of the city. 



Contrary to the prevailing notion of the abuse of dispensaries by 

 patients able to afford a physician's fee, the statistics for the four schools 

 as to source of treatment, show that 235 of the 482 cases treated for 

 defects other than teeth went to consult physicians and only 228 made 

 use of dispensaries. The remaining 19 are not accounted for. 



