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CHAPTER II 

 HISTORY AND PRESENT STATUS 



ED I GAL inspection of schools was first provided for some 

 eighty years ago but it is only during the past quarter 

 of a century that it has assumed the proportions of a 

 world-wide movement. It is found in all the continents, and the 

 extent of its development in different countries is in some measure 

 proportionate to their degree of educational enlightenment. In 

 the most important countries it has now become national in scope. 



FRANCE 



The earliest work in the field of medical inspection seems 

 to have been done in France, where the law of 1833 and the 

 royal ordinance of 1837 charged school authorities with the duty 

 of providing for the sanitary conditions of school premises and 

 supervising the health of the school children. A few years later, 

 in 1842 and 1843, governmental decrees were promulgated in 

 Paris, directing that all public schools should be regularly inspected 

 by physicians. In spite of these early beginnings, however, 

 it was not until 1879 that genuine medical inspection in the 

 modern sense of the term was begun in France. In that year 

 the general council of the Department of the Seine reorganized 

 the medical service in the schools of Paris and passed an appropri- 

 ation for the payment of salaries to the physicians. Eight years 

 later medical and sanitary inspection were made obligatory in 

 all French schools, public and private. 



At the present time the work is carried on in Paris by a 

 force of 210 school physicians who are selected on the basis of 

 competitive examination and each of whom has supervision of 

 not more than 1,000 children. These physicians visit each school 

 at least twice every month and make careful examinations of the 

 sanitary conditions, paying special attention to lighting, ventila- 



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