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 is prevention and cure.
Ever since its establishment the good results of medical inspection
have been evident. Epidemics have been checked or avoided.
Improvements have been noted in the cleanliness and neatness of the
children. Teachers and parents have come to know that under the new
system it is safe for children to continue in school in times of
threatened or actual epidemic.