The Wilmington morning star., 1940-09-19
Medical Care
BY LOGAN CLENDEN1NG, M.

The success of a child in
school is based on his physical
soundness. Our whole system of
education is based on seeing and
hearing. A child with a consider
able degree of failure in vision or
hearing may have got by during
his young years of play, but these
become serious handicaps when he
enters school. The defect may be
entirely unsupported. In on COM
munity in on year IS, 900 children
were found to have defective vision
and 1900 defective hearing.
Other defects while not so dis
abling should receive considera-
ton. The child who is a mouth
breather and is subject to chronic
colds cannot concentrate as sue
cessfully as his healthy school
mates. At this time of year the
nose and throat surgeons are
busily engaged in working on ade-
noids and tonsils so as to correct
the defects resulting from mouth
breathing. The teeth should be ex-
amined and put in good condition
mouth breathing may result IN
bad occlusion of the teeth and NAL.
formed teeth may tend to keep a
child a mouth-breather. Eleven per
cent of children are found 10
be either mouth-breathers or to
have abscessed teeth, the first
year they enter school.
Undernourishment Common
All the defects mentioned are of
a remediable nature and need not
hamper a child's progress forever.
Uhdernourishment is found in
a greater or less deg in nearly
a third Of all first year school chill
dren. In most cases this is due to
ignorance of the use of protective
foods at home. 1t is so easy now
adays to get in the habit of eating
processed foods, especially in a
household where the cook and
housekeeper goes to town to work,
as well. School teachers tell one
that hundreds of children come to
school having had an insufficient
breakfast or one that represents
internal starvation because moth
er and father both had to rush off
to work. To provide breakfast out
of a a or a box is much easier
than getting fresh milk, fresh
fruit, an egg and a good cooked
cereal.
Posture is an indication of good
health or bad health rather than
a disease in itself. It may mean
poor nourishment, the residue of
ricketts, earlier. weak muscles from
under-nutrition or bad postural
habits.
Schools have found an awaken
ing conscience in these conditions
in their pupils. They have a re-
sponsibility for the physical as
well as the spiritual rehabilitation
OF their pupils. So in one form or
another a physical examination Of
all first year school children is at
tempted pretty widely over the
United States. The best plan
would be for the parents to have
their family physician make the
examination: it would be more
thorough and necessarily more in
telligent than the examination
made by the school physician or
the school nurse. But whatever
plan is used the general movement
will inevitably lead to a higher
of physical efficiency in
the citizen of tomorrow.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
E. M. BIS smoking harmful
in Meniere's disease? Also is beer
and alcohol harmful"
Answer have looked up this
question in several textbooks on
ear disease and nervous disease
and I find no prohibition against
smoking expressed by the authors.
Patients, I remember with Me-
disease have been too sick
to ask about it. When you are SO
dizzy you have to lie down on the
bed, order the room to be dark
ened, shut off the telephone and all
other noises, and hang on the the
head Of the bed because you are
spinning raound so hard, you are
not likely to think of taking a
Beer and alcohol make