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21
and should intemperance be added to ignorance there
is privation and neglect. Poverty brings yet another
evil result, for should the natural breadwinner be absent
or out of employment the wife must surrender her
maternal duties in order to do her part towards the
support of the family. The law certainly prohibits the
employment of a woman in a factory or workshop for
the four weeks subsequent to her confinement, and is
good (when not evaded) so far; but the month old
infant deprived of maternal care and natural food has
its chance of surviving enormously diminished.
A large number of the infantile deaths in Bethnal
Green are amongst the bottle fed children of working
class parents. The poverty which compels mothers to
go out to work transfers their infants, that should be
suckled, to the charge of incompetent nurses (very often
mere children themselves) and causes them to be fed
on condensed milk or patent foods from dirty bottles
with foul rubber tubes. Worse still, morsels of whatever
food is at hand are administered to the unfortunate
infant, with the intention to soothe it, but with
frequently fatal results. No wonder that bowel
complaints, convulsions and wasting diseases are rife!
Unfortunately the women know no better, they read
and act upon the lying advertisements of patent food
manufacturers, and their children die. Sanitary notices
and printed circulars are of little use as they are
usually left unread. Some attention is however paid
to a personal visit and instructions given by word of
mouth, and this can be done by means of a health
visitor. When this matter was under discussion I
strongly urged upon the Public Health Committee the