Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1958, Side 64

70
Heilsustandurin hjá børnum i Eiðis læknadømi
SUMMARY
State of Health of the Children in the Medical District of Eiði, Faroes.
All children under 15, 727 in all (353cf, 3749), were examined in
the 6 years from 1945 to 1950.
In 1945 the author of this article had for 25 years been the panel
doctor of the above=mentioned district, the children of which con»
stitute the material for this work. Consequently case books of nearly
all the children were kept. The results of the examinations were com»
pared with the information of the case books about former diseases.
What is stated below is therefore a great many things about the health
of the children from the cradle to the day of examination.
32 children, 4°/o, had a positive tuberculin test. 16 of these had passed
through initial fever or others of the tuberculous diseases usually setting
in shortly after infection; the other 16 had had no symptoms. All the
children were well at the time of examination,—2 girls had organic
heart disease, one—perhaps both of them—born with it. 2 other girls
had asthma. 1 boy Laurences Moon= Biedl’s Disease.
No child under 1 had caries; but of those 1 to 4 years old, 35°/o,
of those 5 to 9 years old, 83°/o, and of those 10 to 14 years old, 90°/o.
A comparison between this examination and previous ones brings
about the conslusion that the teeth of the small children are now much
better then formerly, those of the big ones worse: among the children
of 2 to 4 years there were 72°/o with caries in 1925, in 1945—50, 43°/o,
among the former much more violent then among the latter. Among the
children of 7 to 14 years the percentage was 74 in 1925, now about
90. In 1920 and the following years the sea round the Faroes was almost
devoid of fish, and cod liver oil, therefore, a rare article. This circurn*
stance was probably the cause of the bad teeth of the small children
in 1925.
79 children out of 727 (11 °/o) had had inflammation of the middle
ear (otitis media). No child with flux during the examination. 9 children
had a certain reduction of hearing in one or both ears,—About 10°/o
of the examined children had or had had umbilical hernia in the first
months of living. Most of the hernias disappeared in time. Only 1
child of those 10 to 14 years old had umbilical hernia.—11 children
had been operated for inguinal hernia, all of them before they had
completed their 6th year. Moreover, 1 boy of seven whose hernia was
discovered at the examination.
95 children, 13°/o, had Harrison’s furrow. 24 of these, 26°/o, had it
only on one side, and especially on the leftshand one (the ratio 20 to 4).
10 out of the 71 with Harrison’s furrow on both sides had a deeper
furrow on the lefbhand side of the breast than on the righbhand one