11. A staff of examiners adequate to examine all children and teachers at least once a year for defects of eye, ear, teeth, nose, throat, lungs, spine, bones, glands, etc., and for weight and height to be under the control of the board of education or the board of health. The expense would not be as great as the penalty paid for omitting such examination.
12. A staff of nurses to assist medical examiners to give children practical demonstrations in cleanliness, to teach mothers the care of children both at their homes and in mothers' meetings, to enlist the coöperation of family physician and neighborhood facilities, such as hospitals, dispensaries and relief agencies, magistrates' courts and probation officers,--all to be under the control of the board of education or the board of health.
Whether inspectors, examiners, and nurses shall be directed by the board of education or the board of health is a question that it is impossible to decide without knowledge of local conditions. So far as state and county organizations are concerned, it is clear that whatever the boards of health may do, it will be necessary for state and county superintendents of education to equip themselves with the machinery above recommended. In cities it is quite clear that a board of education should be responsible for all of the machinery suggested, excepting the three divisions that have to do with work hitherto considered as protection against transmissible diseases, namely, inspection, examination, district visiting. In Cleveland these are school duties. In New York they are duties of the health department. Boston has school nurses and health department physicians. The state law of Massachusetts provides that where health boards do not examine school children, school boards may spend money for the purpose.
As to inspection for transmissible diseases, it seems quite clear that health boards should not delegate their authority or responsibility to any other body, for they alone are accountable to their communities for protection against contagion. It is clear, too, that in the interest of community health, departments of health are justified in pointing out in advance of contagion those children most likely to become a menace. Similar grounds of public interest justify the health boards in sending nurses and physicians to the home as a means of getting things done.