the list furnished by
school-teachers--girls supposed to have been cured by school
nurses--not one in five was accepted. A baby two weeks old, brought to
Caroline Rest, had already begun to suffer from this easily preventable
scourge. Of 1219 children examined in Edinburgh, Scotland, 909, or 69
per cent, had some skin disease, and 60 per cent had sores due to head
lice. Even when neglect has caused the loss of hair and ugly sores on
the head, mothers deceive themselves into believing that some other
cause is responsible.

Trachoma, if neglected, not only impairs the health of the eye, but may
cause blindness. Tears carry the germs from the eye to the face, where
they are taken up on handkerchiefs, towels, and fingers and infect
other eyes. Of late, thanks to school nurses and physicians and hygiene
instruction, American cities have found relatively little trachoma
except among recent immigrants. So dangerous is the germ and so
insidious its methods of propagation, that a physician should be
summoned at once at the first sign of inflammation. Conjunctivitis is
due to a germ, and will spread unless checked. Since the board of
health of New York City has instituted the systematic examination of
the eyes of the children in the public schools, it has found fully one
third affected with some form of conjunctivitis. Many of these cases
are out-and-out trachoma, others acute conjunctivitis, and a larger
proportion are "mild trachoma." This last form of the disease is found
to a great extent among children who have adenoids. The adenoids should
be regarded as a predisposing factor rather than a direct cause.
Therefore sore eyes are given as one of the indexes of adenoids. When
we consider that adenoids are made up of lymphoid material, and that
trachoma follicles are made up of the same sort of tissue, it is not
surprising that the two conditions are found in the same child. The
catarrhal inflammation produced by adenoids in the nasal mucous
membrane travels up the lachrymal duct and thus infects the conjunctiva
by contiguity.

In preventing pediculosis and infection of the eye vigilance and
cleanliness are indispensable. After the diseases are advanced, after
the germ colonies have taken title, some antiseptic or germ killer more
violent than water is needed,--kerosene for the hair or strong green
oil soap; for the eye, only what a physician prescribes.

CHAPTER VII

EYE STRAIN

Wherever school children's eyes ha