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1910] 44
nourishment for the structure of the body. Here is a disease that is neithef
caused by heredity nor, so far as is known, by a microbe, and yet it is an entirely
preventable disease, and can be avoided by feeding the children with proper food,
at the proper time. This disease is not fatal, yet it is the means of crippling
thousands of children every year, and so causes a serious economic loss to the
nation. In such cases as these, medical advice, or indeed such advice as health
visitors could give, and might give, would with a certainty have caused a large
diminution of the disease, and would thus have prevented the crippled condition to
which so many persons are subjected as the result of malnutrition at the very
threshold of their lives. This reason, even if there were no others, ought to be
quite sufficient to cause sanitary authorities to provide teachers for the young
mothers of the working classes.