Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/667

 A MODEL MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT 643

of the Nurses' Settlement, has established a corps of trained school nurses to work in conjunction with the medical inspectors. At the time of writing there have been appointed twenty-seven of these nurses for the whole city. Many of them are women of the best training, from the Nurses' Settlement or elsewhere, who love their work, and are therefore glad to give their services to the city for a yearly salary of $900. At present they are under the direction of a supervisory nurse. To her they report once a week, and she in turn reports to the assistant chief medical inspector at department headquarters. Each one is given the care of a definite number of schools, and between them the nurses now cover every day more than one hundred schools. These they visit every morning from 9 A. M. to the close of the school-session at 3 p. M., and during that time treat any cases of contagious eye, throat, or skin disease sent to them by the inspector as too mild to justify exclusion. In the afternoons they visit the homes of all children absent from their respective schools, and, by their tact and free advice to the mothers as to proper treatment, use every means to effect a speedy cure and the early return of the patient to school. During January, 1903, the nurses cared for 13,193 cases in the schools of Manhattan, and visited 540 houses. In February they treated 11,169 cases, and visited 679 homes. 1

The splendid results of New York's system of medical-school inspection, as organized by Dr. Bensil, are apparent to any layman or physician who will take the trouble to investigate. I made a personal tour with some of the inspectors and nurses, and was truly delighted with what I saw. Of course, for its efficient working the system must have the cordial co-operation of the public-school teachers; but this seems already to have been attained, even in the face of much opposition at first. The tact of the inspectors and the school nurses, and their frank desire, not alone to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, but also to benefit the health of the school children and prevent them from shirking their lessons, have evidently won the hearty approval of

1 Where there are compulsory education laws, as in New York, both inspectors and nurses may co-operate to great advantage with truant officers.