The first work of this kind in Cleveland is described in
Superintendent Jones' report for 1900. In that year the schools became
greatly interested in the question of defective vision. Tests were
made by teachers in different grades, and as a result over 2,000
children were given treatment.
In 1906, an agreement was reached with the Board of Health, so that
each alternate day a health inspector communicated with the principal
of every school. Teachers were warned to be on the alert for symptoms
of illness, and children showing signs of measles, whooping cough,
scarlet fever, or other common diseases of childhood, were reported to
the principal, and through her to the Board of Health. Contagious
cases were excluded from school as soon as detected, and a systematic
campaign started against the waves of disease which were sweeping one
after another through the schools.
In the same year Drs. L. W. Childs, J. H. McHenry, H. L. Sanford, and
other members of the medical profession volunteered their services as
school physicians, to detect not only cases of possible contagion, but
also the existence of physical defects. What was probably the first
school dispensary in the United States was opened at the request of
Dr. Childs by the Board of Education in 1907 at the Murray Hill
School. The value of school dispensaries was so immediately evident
that by 1909 seven others were established for the use of these three
physicians.
Coincident with the dispensaries came the school nurse. When the first
nurse was appointed at the Murray Hill School, a remarkable change was
observed among the children. Absences became less frequent. Skin
diseases were rare. Children began to take an interest in health
matters, and there was a marked rise in standards of neatness and
cleanliness. Teachers and principals united in their demand for more
nurses, until within a year after the movement started there were six
nurses appointed by the Board of Education and regularly employed in
school work. In the same year, December, 1909, the Board of Education
formally voted to establish a Division of Health Supervision and
Inspection as part of the regular school system.