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Absence of food storage accommodation;
The inability of the poorer classes during temporary lack of employment
to purchase the necessary milk supplies;
The difficulty, particularly among the poorer classes of obtaining
pure and fresh milk;
The use of patent foods, which are largely advertised as substitutes
for milk;
The perverseness of parents who prefer to adhere to the traditional
methods adopted by their mothers and grandmothers rather than
listen, and much less act, upon advice offered to them by skilled
observers, which they are pleased to designate "doctors fads" or
"new-fangled ideas".
The failure to recognise the danger of diarrhoea in infants, and to
obtain immediate medical advice.
Having determined the causes of the high infant mortality the
Medical Officer of Health made the following suggestions of measures
for the prevention of infant mortality:—
"Every means should be taken to encourage breast-feeding, and
information given to all mothers of its advantages;
"Mothers should receive instructions from competent persons
in regard to the measures to be adopted for successful artificial
feeding when breast-feeding is impossible;
"Pamphlets and cards should be issued by the Council to every
house in which a birth occurs, followed in the poorer districts at
homes selected by the Medical Officer of Health by a visit from one
of the Woman Sanitary Inspectors;
"That objections should not be raised by other governing bodies
to this valuable work by the Women Sanitary Inspectors who may
be competent to give information under the direction of the Medical
Officer of Health;
"In the event of parents, by reason of destitution, being unable to
procure milk, Local Authorities should have power to grant from
time to time temporary supplies on satisfactory evidence that the
recipient is without means;
"No person should be registered to follow the trade of cowkeeper,
dairyman, or purveyor of milk, unless it be first ascertained that
his premises are fit for such business;
"Fresh legislative measures should be enacted and enforced
throughout the country for the better protection of milk supplies".
Mention should be made of the Women's Health Society which
was formed in the Borough at this time (1904), the objects of the Society
were:
The delivery of popular lectures to mothers on infant feeding and
management. These lectures were given regularly in various parts of the
Borough, and were well attended. The Society arranged for tuition in
domestic hygiene for ladies whom it was hoped would act as Voluntary
Health Visitors. Popular lectures were also given upon general hygiene.