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1910] 38
and properly nourished, so too will the man be strong and robust and brave.
Duty plainly indicates to the Council that health visitors should be appointed,
and appointed immediately, just as it goads the Medical Officer of Health to
make these strong representations to a body of men, so many of whom axe his
friends. He, however, prefers to warn them against their aimless drift rather
than conceal from them what they ought to do, and so bring on them and on
himself a charge of grave neglect, believing that never can any advice be wrong
or misunderstood when duty tenders it.
It has been frequently said that if Health Visitors were appointed they
would not be received by the mothers; that they would be turned away ;
and would even run a grave risk of being illtreated. The records of the very
many places where they have been appointed afford no support for such a
surmise—and surmise it is—for as a matter of fact they have been invariably
well received. Indeed, at a conference held not long since in London it was
emphatically stated that not only were they welcomed, but they were frequently
sent for by mothers anxious to receive instruction at their hands.
Let us glance a moment at the mortality from diarrhoea in Islington, for
it has a considerable bearing on this subject. During the last four years
inquiries were made as to the feeding of the infants, the occupation and
the health of the mothers, and other matters, which will be found in detail
in Table XXIII. It was discovered from these inquiries that only 12.7 per cent,
of the infants thus dying were reared on the breast alone, whereas 87.3 per
cent, were artificially fed. Was not this, it may be asked, the result of
maternal occupation, or forced employment? The answer is, no! for it was
found that of these infants' mothers only 37.7 per cent, were employed, while
(>2.3 per cent, were unemployed. When we analyse the figures more closely
we find that whereas only 18.2 per cent, of the mothers of the infants who
died under three months old were at work, there were 81.8 per cent, unemployed.
This is the most critical period of an infant's life, as then it most
requires breast milk, together with proper care and nurture ; and it is also
the time when the mother, and especially the young mother, requires instruction
and aid in the nursing of her offspring. It may be pleaded that possibly
they could not nurse because their health was bad. The returns disprove it,
for whereas 73 per cent, were in good health, only 27 per cent, were in
moderate or bad health. It was, therefore, not because of the state of their
health that they did not nurse their infants.