Child Health
- Author:
Moncrieff, M.D.. F.R.C.P.
Eyre & Spottiswoode (Practitioner Handbooks). 14s.
This book arrives in time to foreshadow many developments in Child Health Services likely to eventuate under the National Health Service. It also directs attention to the already wide extent of State Services available in the medical care of children.
With a foreword by Sir Leonard Parsons, each section deals with an aspect in which the particular author is an expert, although the book is in no sense one for specialists. Rather is the reverse true, that here is ordinary practical advice covering the whole field now available. Thus the indications for residential schools are considered generally in one section, while in another on the handicap of deafness, practical advice is given as to how and where a deaf child can be examined for entrance to such a school.
On the whole vague generalities are avoided, and where clinical advice is given, as in the chapter on breast feeding, it is precise and easy to follow. A certain amount of repetition is inevitable, as for instance in the chapter on the care of the new born child, that on breast feeding, and on problems at a child welfare clinic. Obviously all these will deal with certain aspects of breast feeding. It adds to rather than detracts from the value of the book to have the same problem viewed from rather different angles, and the duplication is never tedious.
In a book such as this, where skilful editing has succeeded in keeping the range wide, and yet at a consistent level, it is. invidious to select individual chapters for mention; but it is impossible to overlook the small masterpiece on ” The Deaf Child ” by A. H. Gale. Here and there is a tendency to quote figures which appear to be somewhat misleading. For example, one toddlers’ clinic is prepared to examine 18 children in 2 hours and goes on to describe a large number of observations collected presumably in this way, including 126 cases ” in which there was backward mental development Presumably this was not assessed on a sixminutes’ interview, but the somewhat alarming implication is that it was.
Inevitably, while there is a warning note sounded as to the dangers of grouping large numbers of small children in Day and Residential Nurseries, the emphasis is on physical disadvantages rather than on psychological. But it could not be said that the book as a whole fails to do justice to the psychological aspect of the care of children, and there is an excellent chapter on psychological problems at a child welfare centre, which is expanded and amplified by another author in the section on Child Guidance Clinics.
This book should be studied both as a survey of existing facilities, which already cover so much useful ground, and as a reference book of clinical and administrative methods in child health. E.M.C.
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