Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-09-26
MANY DISEASE CHILDREN.
SURPRISING TEST RESULTS IN
NEW YORK SCHOOLS.

| Out of 1890 Children in Four Prl-
mary Schools, 6,294 Required Medi-
cal Attention for Some Abnormal
Conoition-More Thorough lnspec
ton Required.
The health authorities under the di-
rection of DIR. Herman Biggs have just
completed very important inyestiga.
ton into The health of some of the
| school children of this city, which
has shown a prevalence of disease
exceeding thier expectations AS a
result they are compiling now a re,
! port TO be made to the Board of EST.
! mate which will describe the condi.
tons found and which will ask that
the city make a special appropriation
for school inspectors sufficient to per-
nit of regular monthly examinations
| of school children much wider in
scope than any ever undertaken be-
| fore.
The figures compiled by the medic
| al inspectors and now in DR.. Biggs'
| possession show that out of almost
$4,000 children examined more than
5000, or almost half, had something
the matter with them That this pro-
portion should exist, according to the
| doctors, shows the necessity of adopt
| ing some system by which every
child showing disease of any form
can be followed up by regular monthly
examinations. To do that it will re-
| ulIira q largo innraaco in tho nroaapt
appropriation.
| While the health authorities have
been gradually extending their work
of looking after the health of school
children, they have never gone so far
as to make the general physical con-
dition of child part of the work of
the Health Department. Until recent
years all that the medical inspectors
in the schools did was to examine all
cases reported by the teacher as be
| ing possibly infectious. This work
in itself requires lot of inspectors.
Later, skin diseases and pediculosis.
which was especially prevalent, were
| included.
For a year or more past monthly
examinations have Deen made for the
purpose of discovering such cases.
The Health authorities have also been
| employing fifty trained nurses, known
| as school nurses. In Manhattan and
| the Bronx these nurses subject the
| children sometimes to daily eXamina-
| lions, besides visiting their homes and
advising their parents.
| Last spring, when sociological stu
| dent raised the cry of breakfastless
school children, DR.. Biggs had an ex-
animation made of this phase. II
had hardly been completed before it
was decided to have a general physi-
cal examination made of a certain
number Of children, which should in
clude all kinds of diseases, bad nutri-
| ton, nervousness, mentality, enlarged
glands, condition of the breathing or
gans, vision and hearing and all de
formfties of the spine or chest No
such examination had ever been I'M
dertaken before. The work was done
by 100 inpectors. -Four schools of the
primary grade were taken. All of
them were in the poorer quarters, but
the worst quarters for disease were
avoided in order that the results
might be taken as general About
1000 children a week were examined,
one doctor doing about six a dGy The
work was completed just before the
end of the school year and the fig
ures have just been put together.
The exact number of children ex-
amined, as announced yesterday by
Dr.. Bjggs, was 1891 OF this so1n-
Der those d2s-~ibed as 'equiring med
ical attention was 1924 The num-
Der Of i'll fed children found was 1922.
This is the complete result: