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Department of the Local Government Board into a Health
Ministry; and that an inquiry be made by the Government as to
the need for this suggested development and separation of the
Medical Department of the Local Government Board in the light
of the growth and complexity of Public Health administration."
2. Infantile Mortality, and Municipal Infants' Milk Depots.
It was resolved:— "That the high death-rate of infants
urgently calls for special inquiry, and the appointment by the
Sanitary Institute of a Special Committee on the subject is
recommended." This resolution arose out of a discussion on
Municipal Infants' Milk Depots. It was, by all present, admitted
that the present high infantile mortality (which is, in fact, as high
as it was 50 years ago) is due, more or less directly, to improper
feeding, and that, consequently, what is wanted, in addition to
educating mothers, is the provision by a Municipality for infants
and young children of a nutritious, digestible food, free from
chemical (or other) preservatives and from pathogenic organisms,
and kept free from home contamination. This much-needed want
can, and will, be most easily fulfilled by the establishment of Milk
Depots, where pure milk (sterilised and humanised), to be distributed
in hermetically sealed bottles (each bottle sufficient for one meal
and 110 more), can be secured. Such Depots would, in the opinion
of the Congress, have an important educative value, but are to be
regarded as additional to the other ordinary educational methods
in use (distribution of handbills, appointment of female inspectors
or women health visitors, etc.). Bradford has recently opened a
Municipal Milk Depot, which I visited and inspected.
8. Notification of Consumption, and the provision of Sanatoria
It was resolved:—"That the time Las arrived for systematic
statutory notification of consumption," i.e., for compulsory (in
place of voluntary) notification. The educative value of sanatoria,
as distinct from their value as curative institutions, was much
emphasised, and the Brighton Corporation, for instance, is doing
much useful work in that connection by receiving consumptive
patients for a month's sojourn into a separated portion of the
Corporation's Isolation Hospital, which is suitably situated on the
Downs.
4. Epidemic Grant for Schools, Section 101* of th$ Code.
It was resolved "That it is desirable to recognise the Code
regulations for the payment of grants (Section 101*) in cases
where the absence of scholars is due to epidemic disease, as this
regulation has been a sanitary influence of great practical use in
the past."
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