The medical inspection of schools has been favorably regarded in
Uruguay for a number of years. It was initiated by law in 1913 with
the examination of the pupils of the normal schools in Montevideo and
the division of urban and rural schools into five groups. Since then
popular approval of its application to the schools of the nation has
steadily grown.
Under the present law individual inspection of the physical condition
of pupils concerns itself only with those who enter for the first time.
Naturally the law is applied with varying degrees of rigor, the schools
of the capital being visited regularly by the medical inspectors, while
those of the outlying departments are dependent upon the energy and
faithfulness of the individual inspector. The law assigns to each a
certain number of schools to visit. Capable medical inspectors have
served their nation well in pointing out the grave disadvantages from
the use of primary schools for night schools for adults, especially the
danger of tuberculosis.
Medical inspectors are also required by law to include in their
tri-monthly reports recommendations for repairs, alterations, etc.,
of school buildings and grounds called for by sanitary or hygienic
considerations.
Dental inspection has also been systematically carried on in most of
the schools of the capital, the reports of oral and dental affections
observed in the children reaching 76 per cent of the total ailments
noted. Ocular inspection in the schools of Montevideo has also been
made a separate field within the last biennium.
By an amendment of 1916 to the existing law an annual physical
examination of teachers in the schools of Montevideo will be required.
This was naturally, and in certain instances bitterly, opposed; but the
opposition has largely died down, and the teachers themselves have come
to realize the benefits involved.