A text-book on hygiene and pediatrics from a chiropractic standpoint

by J. H. Craven

Statistics show that tests and examinations have a detrimental effect upon the health of the pupils. Experiments have shown that children lose weight during such tests and examinations; that they are restless at night and suffer loss of appetite. All these have a bearing upon the health of the child.

Posture

Attention should be given the habits of the children and especially the posture of the child as he sits in the seat at his desk. A faulty posture may result in an adaptative curvature of the spine which in later years will do much harm. The sitting posture is of more importance than the standing posture since the child sits so much more than he stands.

The pupil should not be allowed to sit in a stooped position over his desk as this cramps the chest and interferes with respiration, makes the heart action labored and produces round shoulders; it also tends to produce a kyphosis in the dorsal region of the spine. If a child persists in sitting in this stooped position and finds it difficult to sit in the proper position, attention should be given the spine, for subluxations will be found which are interfering with the transmission of mental impulses to the muscles of the back, thus making it difficult for the child to sit in the normal posture. Or it may be defective eyes which make it difficult for the child to see his work and he therefore stoops that the work may be brought nearer the eyes. In this case a cervical subluxation will be found and when properly adjusted no more trouble will be experienced. It may be this tendency to stoop is the result of fatigue; to overcome this he should be given periods of rest and relaxation from time to time during school hours; or this fatigue may be due to poor elimination from the kidney place subluxations.

Recess

During the morning and afternoon sessions the pupils should be given a recess for fifteen or twenty minutes, and when the weather will permit all the children should be required to go outdoors and engage in some form of play or exercise, properly supervised by a thoroughly competent individual. This will not only benefit the pupils physically, but will also make the mind more active and aid very materially in their mental development. In addition to this exercise, some time during the day the windows should be opened, except possibly in extremely cold weather, and the teacher and pupils should engage in some form of calisthenics. This will tend to keep the pupils in a fit physical condition and mentally alert for the balance of the day.

The school grounds should be provided with modern equipment for the proper development of the children physically and should be supervised by kind and well trained attendants. Every school should have a well equipped and properly supervised gymnasium.

School Dis-eases

At one time the school was thought to be largely responsible for the spread of dis-eases among children, but this idea is changing in later years. In reality there are no specific school dis-eases. The dis-eases that have been so referred to are merely those abnormal conditions incident to childhood and youth. Rosenau gives a very interesting article on this subject. He says: “Parents naturally come to regard the school as a veritable pesthouse for the spread of communicable dis-eases of childhood—especially measles, whooping cough, mumps, diphtheria, scarlet fever, common colds, etc. Many of these dis-eases prevail in epidemic form during the summer time, when school is closed, and under other circumstances which show the epidemics may be independent of school attendance. It is difficult to determine just what part is played by the commingling of the pupils in school in the spread of such dis-eases and what part is due to other factors. Some dis-eases take a sudden jump in the autumn with the opening of school. Further, these dis-eases are not contracted by the school children alone, but are carried home to the other members of the household, and thereby create secondary foci. This problem of the communicable dis-eases and the school is far from solution; the spread of these dis-eases has not been conquered by medical inspection, and their relation to school attendance is one that needs careful observation and study.”

Thus we see that the cause of school dis-eases has not been answered, and we find in this article that which strengthens the contention of Chiropractic—that the cause of the dis-ease is in the child and not something introduced from the outside.