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well as in the school there is sound knowledge of what may be done to
give the proper environment for healthy life and work.
The writer of a series of excellent letters which appeared in the
"Times" in the Autumn of last year, while appearing to attach little
importance to such remedies as Creches and municipal supplies of
sterilised milk, wrote as follows:— Far better (he says) is the plan
adopted by some towns of appointing lady inspectors, who may be
reinforced indefinitely by voluntary assistants, to pay nursing visits.
The mothers are said to welcome the attention and the help, and most
of them are found tractable, not only in regard to the details of feeding
and nursing—ignorance and neglect of which are the immediate cause of
death—but also in regard to the whole maternal duty. The sense of
responsibility is awakened in them, no doubt, by the sympathetic
interest taken in their affairs by the visitor. The remedy (he
concludes), is not complete, but it is real, and, so far as it goes, it
touches the root of the matter, and it illustrates once more the value of
personal service, which is still the great force in human affairs." I
fully agree with the writer of that letter.
The persistently high rate of infantile mortality and the knowledge
that it is due in a material degree to the use of milk contaminated
by dirt, is leading to the establishment of milk depots, at which
Sterilized, Pasteurized and Humanized milk is supplied at a small cost
for the use of children whose parents are willing to submit to certain
conditions as to its use. The experiences of St. Helens, Battersea,
Liverpool and elsewhere, are certainly encouraging. The milk trade is
of course very averse to such institutions, which are alluded to as
instances of municipal trading, but it is clear that the trade has the
remedy in its own hands, for as soon as it is able to produce
genuine milk in an unpolluted condition, free from preservative drugs
and artificial colouring matter, almost the whole of the necessity for
municipal interference will be removed. It is certain that if the
educated section of the public were familiar with the conditions under
which most of the milk is drawn in rural districts, they would not be
long before they strengthened the hands of those who do know, and