Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-02-03
SAYS MEDICAL
INSPECTION FAILS
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
FINDS FAULT WITH PRACTICE
AMONG THE SCHOOLS.

An article attacking the inspecting
of school children for physical de-
fects is published by the Christian
Science Monitor as follows:
The modern worship of the medical
fetish is finding expression just now
in an enthusiasm for medical inspec-
ton of school children, which is en-.
tirely disproportionate to the amount
Of good that has actually resulted from
experiments hitherto made. The pro
medical journals are praising this
latest theory of health conservation
without due respect for the effects that
have followed it's Introduction into the
public schools There is a growing
conviction in many quarters that
medical inspection is a failure, that it
has not done and can never do what its
ardent advocates have claimed it
would be able to do
Medical opinion abroad is depre-
eating the latterday methods of ex-
plotting disease and creating a public
excitement respecting it. 1t would be
we'll if the public thought in this coun-
try should gain better perspective,
with regard to these questions of
health conservation that are receiving
such exaggerated attention. The poet
Burns shrewd comment on human ma
ture Is not inapplicable to the craze
for health protection which is being
fostered by those who have an econo-
mic interest in it.
20 wad some power the giftie gle us,
To see oursels as others see u.s."
may easily apply to the health faddist
.of today. If we could see ourselves as
some calm observers do see us, we
might conclude that the country had
been given over to a shrewd and
profitable commercial exploitation on
the ground that the public health is
in grave danger and requires protec-
ton. This craze has been very aptly
called "a plague of hygienics." and
DR.. Loesch of Budapest prophesies:
"If you push to logical extremes the
dread of bacilli. then you will have to
lock up humanity in great vacuum,
surrounded by sterilized glass;" The
Russian medical journal, Vratsch,
quotes the opinion Of the late Profess
sor Abramoff to the effect that "the
obsession of hygiene is responsible for
many nervous and for some physical
ailments"
If medical inspection could be con-
fined within sensible and justifable
limits, that is to say, if inspection
could be limited to the very proper
question of guarding against the
spread of disease, it is not likely that
there would be serious objection But,
unfortunately. medical inspection at
tempts to go far beyond these reason
able limits and Immediately becomes
impractible and offensive. From the
very nature of the circumstances,
physical examinations Of school chill
dren, as. at present conducted, are
superficial and therefore useless.
Wholesale and necessarily careless
physical examinations accomplish
nothing practically good and much
that is to be regretted. No matter
how much disease is discovered by the
medical inQuisition the health Of the
child is not improved thereby, for the
reason, that diagnosis is not treatment
and unless compulsory treatment fol-
lows compulsory diagnosis no progress
is being made toward the better health
of the individual pupil.
In the last analysis, it must be adj
mitted that the sole right to care for
the child, to select and provide treat
ment of whatever nature, rests with
the parent or guardian. Compulsory
that many of them are defective, is
treatment is unthinkable, under a
constitutional form of government,
such as o,srs. The inevitable con-
tviction follows that the money spent
L.. Is,z-~
he money spent merely to discove