Health Work in the Public Schools

Health Work in the Public Schools, by

Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Health Work in the Public Schools
Author: Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres
Release Date: November 2, 2006 [EBook #19701]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CLEVELAND EDUCATION SURVEY
HEALTH WORK IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
LEONARD P. AYRES AND MAY AYRES
[Illustration: CFS]
THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION CLEVELAND �� OHIO
1915
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION
WM��F. FELL CO��PRINTERS PHILADELPHIA
THE SURVEY COMMITTEE OF THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION
Charles E. Adams, Chairman Thomas G. Fitzsimons Myrta L. Jones Bascom Little Victor W. Sincere
Arthur D. Baldwin, Secretary James R. Garfield, Counsel Allen T. Burns, Director
THE EDUCATIONAL SURVEY Leonard P. Ayres, Director
[Illustration: Team work between physician and nurse in Cleveland.]

FOREWORD
This report on "Health Work in the Public Schools" is one of the 25 sections of the report of the Educational Survey of Cleveland conducted by the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation in 1915. Twenty-three of these sections will be published as separate monographs. In addition there will be a larger volume giving a summary of the findings and recommendations relating to the regular work of the public schools, and a second similar volume giving the summary of those sections relating to industrial education. Copies of all these publications may be obtained from the Cleveland Foundation. They may also be obtained from the Division of Education of the Russell Sage Foundation, New York City. A complete list will be found in the back of this volume, together with prices.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE Foreword 5 List of Illustrations and Diagrams 9 The Argument for Medical Inspection 11 Health and School Progress 13 Examinations for Physical Defects 14 Objections to Medical Inspection 16 How the Work Started 18 The Present System 20 The School Nurse 21 Cleveland's Dispensaries 24 Dental Clinics 28 Eye Clinics 30 Co-operation of College for Barbers 32 The Medical Inspection Staff 32 The Plan of Concentrating Interests 34 Uniform Procedure 37 Vaccination 39 Future Development 43 Ten Types of Health Work 46 Health and Education and Business 48 Summary 54
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Team work between physician and nurse in Cleveland. Frontispiece Tony's tonsils need attention 17 Either doctor or nurse visits every school every day 20 Cleveland's dispensaries are well equipped 25 The equipment of the Marion School dental clinic cost about $700 28 The eye clinic is advertised by its loving friends 31 Vaccinated children at Hodge School--50,000 more are unvaccinated 39 Shower baths installed in an old building in a crowded section 44
DIAGRAMS
Number of children given physical examinations each year for five school years and number found to have physical defects 26
Per cent of physical defects corrected each year for five school years 36

HEALTH WORK IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Cleveland employs 16 physicians, one oculist, and 27 nurses to take charge of the health of her school children. The city spends $36,000 a year on salaries and supplies for these people. There are 86 school dispensaries and clinics. Cleveland is making this heavy investment because she finds it pays.

THE ARGUMENT FOR MEDICAL INSPECTION
Medical 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.
In Cleveland, the value of medical inspection was recognized while the movement was still in its infancy in America. Here, as elsewhere, 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 conditions meant compulsory disease.
The state, to provide for its own protection, has decreed that all children must attend school, and has put in motion the all-powerful but indiscriminating agency of compulsory education, which gathers in the rich and the poor, the bright and the dull, the healthy and the sick. The object was to insure that these children should have sound minds. One of the unforeseen results was to insure that they should have unsound bodies. Medical inspection is the device created to remedy this condition. Its object