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attempts have been made to obtain this information, and in
January, 1904, I applied upon your authority to the Local
Registrars of Births for the necessary returns, upon the payment
of suitable fees. The Registrars were, I believe, willing to
supply the information provided they received permission from
the Registrar-General, but this permission was withheld, the
Registrar-General stating that he saw "grave objection to the
proposal that Registrars should furnish a detailed return of
births to the local authority, and that he had uniformly declined
to approve such an application." In consequence of this
decision we were unable to adopt any useful and direct measures
towards reducing the mortality from preventable disease amongst
infants, but could only revert to the useless action of making
enquiries and giving advice after a death had been recorded.
Even supposing that the advice proved useful in future births it
was absurd to advise parents of their errors after their loss.
A further attempt to obtain-the information was made in a letter
sent by your Council, as follows, a copy of which was sent to the
Local Government Board:—
22nd September, 1904.
To the Registrar-General.
Sir,
I beg to inform you that this Council have received a
report from their Medical Officer of Health upon the question of
infantile mortality, iu which he points out that the Council is
powerless to exercise any successful preventative measures in
the absence of detailed information in regard to births registered
in the district. He further states that he is of opinion from
information obtained from homes where deaths have unfortunately
occurred through epidemic diarrhoea that their exists an
astonishing amount of ignorance among the poorer classes of
the district of the elementary principles of feeding their offspring,
which can only be remedied by instruction and visits
from the "Woman Sanitary Inspector within a reasonable time
after the births have taken place, and he thinks that such
action may diminish the mortality from this cause to a marked
extent. This Council concur in this view and for the purpose
of effecting same I have been directed to ask that you will be