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The work of the four health visitors is, in a sense, of a dual
nature. They act as a link between the voluntary welfare centres
and the public health department on the one hand, and on the
other are responsible, each in one parliamentary division, for
visits to notified cases of ophthalmia neonatorum and puerperal
pyrexia, as well as for visiting all cases of measles not officially
notified. In addition they visit and report upon the home
conditions and preparations for the coming baby in all ante-natal
cases applying for admission to the council's maternity home,
as well as for in-patient or out-patient treatment in confinement by
any hospital or lying-in home whose lady almoner writes for the
information. Their duties include the investigation of a number
of stillbirths and the deaths of young children, and the rendering
of help and advice generally in connexion with cases of zymotic
enteritis, and they pay innumerable other visits for various purposes
of health instruction in the homes to those who do not fall into one
or other of the above categories.