534 MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS. 



possess not merely an abstract scientilic interest. Ijnt have an 

 important bearing upon onr social, economic, and racial evolu- 

 tion. In the United States important data have been obtained 

 with regard to the ])revalence of hook-worm disease among 

 school children, and measm-es are now being adopted to cope 

 with this plague, which shotild considerably improve the econo- 

 mic efficiency of the industrial population in the southern States. 

 In the northern districts of this Province, we have a disease 

 whose incidence is as great as that of hook-worm disease in 

 America, and whose efifects u])on the liealth of the growing chil- 

 dren of our population are, from the point of national efficiency, 

 most pernicious. This is malaria. I have had tlie opportimity 

 of noting the detriment caused by this disease in school 

 children in two districts, and I confess that it has been a most 

 unpleasant and saddening revelation. In the district of Pretoria 

 we have another disease, red-water, or bilharziosis. which, 

 although far less openly detrimental to the school efficiency of 

 the children, is ])robably responsible for some degree of dete- 

 rioration, and, in certain serious cases at least, undotibtedly 

 affects the wage-earning efficiency in later life. There are, fiu'- 

 ther, the many defects of early childhood, preventable or remov- 

 able, that one meets with during rotitine inspections — defective 

 teeth, catising constant absor])tion of poisonous products, gastro- 

 intestinal defects, im|)erfect vision, liodilv deformity, defective 

 hearing, malnutrition and anaemia. All these nnist have an im- 

 portant bearing upon the national physique, and must, therefore, 

 be dealt with as speedily and as radically as the means at oiu" 

 disjiosal allow. Moreover, we have stn-ely some obligation to 

 investigate the eft'ects of certain of oiu- industries and occu]^a- 

 tions upon the develo])ment and ]^hysical and mental evolution of 

 our growing citizens. It is not merely a question of landing otit 

 by how many centimetres oiu" girls and boys fall short in stattire 

 when compared with cliildren of a similar age in Queensland or 

 Canada, by how many decimals of a kilogram they differ in 

 weight from children elsewhere. Interesting as these data are 

 from a purely anthropometric point of view, they are insignifi- 

 cant and of little value unless they supply us with information 

 that we may adapt to j^ractical use with a view to imj^roving the 

 conditions which are the primary causes of racial deterioration. 



In the third ])!ace, medical inspection of schools must stinni- 

 late public and ])arental interest in problems of juvenile hygiene 

 and social efficiency. Without such interest its eff'orts will be 

 barren of useful collective results, devoid of that driving force 

 that creates progress in spite of great obstacles in its way. 

 Especially in a new country, where the means of communal 

 instruction by precept and example for the population is not so 

 apparent as it is in an older civilisation, is such stimulation of 

 popular interest most necessary. 



The creation of a liealth conscience [remarks a School Medical 

 Inspector of Victoria in liis last annual report] of a sort of extra sense 

 ■ — sanitary sensitiveness — will eventually, by its preventive value. i)rove 



