Article March 27, 1915 Issue

There is a bill before the Connecticut Legislature entitled,...

New Haven (Conn.) Register

There is a bill before the Connecticut Legislature entitled, "An Act Concerning the Appointment and Duties of School Physicians." This proposed legislation provides for a large and very definite extension of the system of inspection and examination of school children. Besides requiring every pupil in a city or town of ten thousand or more inhabitants, upon entering either a grammar or a high school, to be examined by the school physician, and thereafter at least annually, it also provides that "backward" pupils, and those showing "defects, etc.," shall receive "special attention," at the discretion of the physician. Advice or orders relative to treatment are to be communicated to the parents or guardians, and further, nurses acting "under the direction of the school physician" shall visit the homes of pupils . . . and assist in executing the orders of the school physician." At the will of the doctor, "investigation of the blood, sputum, bacteria of the throat, and so forth," may be made.

The fact that the boards of health and school physicians are of one school of medicine, namely, the allopathic school, is sufficient reason to foresee opposition to the measure. Parents and guardians who prefer the homeopathic, eclectic, osteopathic, or some one of the various newer systems of treating disease, naturally would object to the constant medical surveillance and examination of their offspring by physicians of the one school of the medical profession represented in the school physician and provided by the state. It is argued by the critics of this bill that confining school inspectors to practitioners of one school of medicine or system of treating disease, constitutes special privilege and class legislation, a violation of constitutional rights, besides being manifestly unjust when it is considered that the adherents to the allopathic school constitute a small minority of the present population of our country.

The purpose of this bill, those favoring it state, is to lessen disease, and in the language of the bill, "to insure better physical conditions of school children." On the other hand, it is claimed, experience has proven that school inspection does not lessen disease, but on the contrary tends to increase it. The experiences of some of our large cities are referred to in order to prove that school inspection has not accomplished what it was claimed it would. It is pointed out that, according to Chicago official tables, children's diseases in 1906 numbered 20,242, and in 1913 aggregated 38,039, and each year showed a steady increase. Another thing which this proposed measure calls attention to, is that physicians are not yet infallible as to diagnosis. Such an eminent authority as Dr. Cabot of Boston, has stated that in only 50 per cent of cases is the diagnosis correct. And it is common knowledge that physicians of the same school are continuing to disagree with respect to the diagnosis of cases.

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