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Everyday Health Series

For Elementary Schools

Book One:

BUILDING HEALTH HABITS

Book Two: KEEPING THE BODY IN HEALTH

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

1. An accurate and attractive presentation 2. Hygiene and health stressed rather than anatomy and physiology

3. A positive rather than a negative appeal

4. Illustrations from actual photographs

5. Practical and original exercises at end of each

chapter

6. Material which stimulates interest in practical

problems

7. Excellent discussion of communicable diseases, common accidents, and health exercises

8. Avoidance of unnecessary pathological detail 9. Personal progress health charts

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Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature

VOL. XLII.

of Education

FEBRUARY, 1922

No. 6

A Comprehensive Health Program for Public
Elementary Schools-Its Necessity
and Scope

E. E. CORTRIGHT, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS,
BRIDGEPORT, CONN.

D

URING the past decade America has found the opportunity to take an account of stock. In many instances the balance is on the credit side of the ledger. In matters of health, however, the balance is rather distinctly on the debit side. Certain surveys, some planned and others accidental, have furnished the evidence that our national health is a matter for concern. Among these agencies of evidence I want to name four.

Defective Teeth. What has amounted to almost a nation-wide examination, spreading from three cities where lived progressive dentists and other persons of vision, shows the appalling condition wherein practically 95% of the children in the public schools have defective teeth. The defects are not bounded by decay and dental caries alone in the deciduous teeth, but in a large percentago of cases the permanent teeth are gone beyond hope, the gums are infested with fistulae, and the entire mouth filthy. Defective teeth is hardly classed as a disease, but such wholesale defects are certainly an alarming symptom.

The Draft. We called the flower of our youth, our choice young men between 21 and 31, in the strength of their prime and were forced to reject about one out of four for remediable

defects. Somebody, somewhere, had failed. The report of the Provost Marshal shows a serious, progressive, physical deterioration year by year even in this our best group. The effectives at 21 averaged 46%, but by a steadily decreasing ratio it had dropped to 22% at 30. In commenting on these facts and figures, Dr. Eugene Fisk, of the Life Extension Institute, said: "The most superficial analysis shows very clearly that at least 60% of these rejected men owe their impairments either to ignorance or neglect. . . . 40% of the men between the ages of 21 and 31 are physically unfit. It must be remembered that the majority of these men were not declined because of surgical defects. They need physical training, hygiene and proper diet." This looks distinctly like a school job, for the school can and should do all these things.

Malnutrition. Wherever surveys have been conducted, through even the simplest of means-weighing and measuring the evidences are ominously similar, that almost one out of four of our school children have sufficiently faulty nutrition to make them probable candidates for a special class to overcome the condition. Dr. Wm. R. P. Emerson of Boston, our recognized authority in this matter, states that a child who is 7% or more below weight has lost a year in normal growth, and he makes this the basis for beginning his work of correction.

In December, 1920, I directed the inquiry into the lower grades of seven of our largest schools, as a preliminary to attacking this matter if conditions showed it was needed, with the following results:

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Upon the evidence of this preliminary finding I asked the medical inspection division to continue the work for the entire elementary system. This will be completed soon.

At first thought one would be almost certain to decide that malnutrition was a poverty condition. The school above with the best showing from every point of view (Waltersville) is solidly foreign, located in a district where the city's greatest congestion exists, and where the economic condition is extremely poor. This tallies with Dr. Emerson's statement that the worst condition he found was in a New England private school where the tuition charges are very high, the pupils coming from homes of wealth and plenty.

The above evidence is general. Now let us turn to the specific work of an organization well known in New York City.

In the clinics for examining apparently well children, conducted by the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, a careful survey has recently been made of 2,186 children, ranging from 2 to 18 years of age. A brief resume of the valuable statistics secured is reprinted below:

RATIO OF DEFECTS TO AGE.

Defects were present in 87% of all children from 2 to 6 years of age.

Defects were present in 92% of all children from 6 to 12 years of age.

Defects were present in 87% of all children from 12 to 18 years

of age.

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