=============================================+==========+=========== | Total | Percentage ---------------------------------------------+----------+----------- Number of children examined | 275,641 | 100 Number of children needing treatment | 198,139 | 71.9 _Defects found:_ | | Malnutrition | 16,021 | 5.8 Diseased anterior or posterior cervical | | glands | 125,555 | 45.5 Chorea | 3,776 | 1.3 Cardiac disease | 3,385 | 1.2 Pulmonary disease | 2,841 | 1.0 Skin disease | 4,557 | 1.6 Deformity of spine, chest, or extremities | 4,892 | 1.7 Defective vision | 58,494 | 21.2 Defective hearing | 3,540 | 1.2 Obstructed nasal breathing | 43,613 | 15.8 Defective teeth | 136,146 | 49.0 Deformed palate | 3,625 | 1.3 Hypertrophied tonsils | 75,431 | 27.4 Posterior nasal growths | 46,631 | 16.9 Defective mentality | 7,090 | 2.5 =============================================+==========+========= It is generally believed that New York children must have more defects than children elsewhere. If this assumption is wrong, if children in other parts of the United States are as apt to have eye defects, enlarged tonsils, and bad teeth as the children of the great metropolis, then the army of children needing attention would be seven out of ten, or over 14,000,000. Whether these figures overstate or understate the truth, the school authorities of the country should find out. The chances are that the school in which you are particularly interested is no exception. To learn what the probable number needing attention is, divide your total by ten and multiply the result by seven. The seriousness of every trouble and its particular relation to school progress and to the general public health will be explained in succeeding chapters. The point to be made here is that the examination of the school child discloses in advance of epidemics and breakdowns the children whose physical condition makes them most likely to "come down" with "catching diseases," least able to withstand an attack, less fitted to profit fully from educational and industrial opportunity.