THERE has been a marked change in our concept of the term "school health service." Early activities in this field were almost wholly devoted to the control of communicable disease. Today, thanks to immunization, the antibiotic drugs and health education, most of the old enemies of child health have been conquered. As a result, the years that a child spends in school have been made the healthiest period of life, when appraised by the crude measure of mortality.
Why then school health service? Let me first define what I mean by this term. It comprises health supervision of the school child by educators, public health nurses and school physicians for case-finding and health guidance. At no other time of life is the child or family so readily available for preventive medical service and health education. Public health cannot afford to neglect this ready access to so large a segment of the population—actually more than 20 million persons.
Entrance to kindergarten and first grade is perhaps the most valuable of these opportunities. For all too many children, this is the first health examination since the first year of life. Habit disorders or physical defects which have developed in the preschool years can be brought to light and treatment advised.
A convincing demonstration of the value of a good medical examination at this time of life occurred recently when I was instructing a group of fourth year medical students. As part of their pediatric training, they visited a school to do some examinations under supervision.