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37 [1910
for nothing has been more fatal to young children than the early resumption
of work by mothers who have recently been confined. It is bound to have
farreaching effects.
But while the Government are thus about to do their part, it also behoves
the local authorities who control the administration of local affairs, and who, therefore,
have the management of the health interests of the people, by far the greatest
of all interests which they direct, to do their part; and particularly to see that
the wives of the labouring classes, who enter upon matrimony in absolute ignorance
of all matters appertaining to maternity, shall receive adequate instruction
after, as well as just prior to, their lyingin. Happily most authorities in the
country have determined to do their duty, and not a few in the County of London
also, but unfortunately we in Islington still remain passive. We are not doing
our duty. The trouble and difficulties of the poorer classes have not yet
appealed to us. We are allowing children to die without affording them
that assistance which the Government say is necessary, and which they are
desirous we should give; which the collective wisdom of those engaged in
public health work in this country say is necessary; which Parliament so
approved that it passed the Notification of Births Act, 1907, in order that the
authorities should be supplied with the requisite information at the earliest
moment; which the InterDepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration
has altogether blessed; which the National Conferences on Infantile
Mortality of 1906 and 1908 have strongly urged; and which everyone who
has studied this question is convinced is absolutely essential to stay the sacrifice
of infant life that is taking place, so that these children live but a handful of
days. Are we in Islington more wise than these authorities? Do we understand
this subject better than those persons who have so carefully inquired into
the best methods for the prevention of these deaths ? Certainly not! Then why
delay ?
" Delays have dangerous ends "
and in this case, contrary to what Shakespeare says that
" In delay lies no plenty,"
there does lie plenty—plenty of pain, plenty of suffering, plenty of anguish,
and plenty of deaths. Truly delays have dangerous ends. Then why
delay? The duty is manifest, the means to be adopted obvious,
the results — the saving of life, the amelioration of pain, the
sturdier growth of the child, and the prevention of much illness in the
later life of the child—certain, for the child is father to the man in a very literal
sense, because as the frame work, the bony structure, the nervous centres are well