CHAPTER I 

 THE ARGUMENT FOR MEDICAL INSPECTION 



M 



EDICAL inspection is an extension of the activities of 

 the school in which the educator and the physician join 

 hands to insure for each child such conditions of health 

 and vitality as will best enable him to take full advantage of 

 the free education offered by the state. Its object is to better 

 health conditions among school children, safeguard them from 

 disease, and render them healthier, happier, and more vigorous. 

 It is founded upon a recognition of the intimate relationship 

 between the physical and mental conditions of the children, 

 and the consequent dependence of education on health conditions. 



When Boston initiated medical inspection in America in 

 1894, by dividing her schools into 50 districts and placing a 

 physician in charge of each district, she did so in the hope that 

 the new measure would curb the waves of contagious disease 

 that repeatedly swept through the ranks of the children, leaving 

 behind a record of suffering and death. The experiment was 

 successful, and when other cities learned how Boston was solving 

 the problem, they too began to employ school physicians and to 

 organize systems of medical inspection. 



During the first years the spread of the movement was 

 slow, only one or two cities taking it up each year; then these 

 pioneers were followed by dozens of their sister cities, later by 

 scores, and in the past few years by hundreds. 



This sudden recognition of the imperative necessity for 

 safeguarding the physical welfare of school children grew out of 

 the discovery that compulsory education under modern city con- 

 ditions meant compulsory disease. 



With the great changes which have been coming over 

 American life, former conditions have disappeared and undisturbed 

 indifference to the physical welfare of our school children has 

 become impossible. We have changed from an agricultural 



