Medical Inspection of State Schoolchildren in Australia, c.1905-14

Abstract

From about 1905 some medical practitioners pressed State governments to back official physical examinations of State school children. Their campaign embodied a broader project to identify and reduce incapacities undermining public hygiene and national efficiency. Some of the activists became inspectors in Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland. Evidence about their relations with children, teachers, parents, communities and local GPs seems to be meagre but worth pursuing. The campaign's immediate and longterm effects on child health apparently disappointed its proponents 'hopes, but still might have helped many children and benefited national fitness. Later repercussions of boys being classed as 'fit' could prove deadly in the Great War.