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37
Suggested Measures for the Prevention of Infantile Mortality.
Every means should be taken to encourage breast-feeding,
and information given to all mothers of its advantages.
Mothers should receive instructions from competent
persons in regard to the measures to be adopted for successful
artificial feeding when breast-feeding is impossible.
Pamphlets and cards should be issued by the Council to
every house in which a birth occurs, followed in the poorer
districts at homes selected by the Medical Officer of Health by
a visit from one of the Woman Sanitary Inspectors.
That objections should not be raised by other governing
bodies to this valuable work by Woman Sanitary Inspectors who
may be considered competent to give information under the
direction of the Medical Officer of Health.
In the event of parents, by reason of destitution,
being unable to procure milk, Local Authorities should have
power to grant from time to time temporary supplies on satisfactory
evidence that the recipient is without means.
No person should be registered to follow the trade of
cowkeeper, dairyman, or purveyor of milk, unless it be first
ascertained that his premises are fit for such business.
Fresh legislative measures should be enacted and enforced
throughout the country for the better protection of milk supplies.
Dr. Edmund Cantley, in a recent paper, offered a suggestion
by which a pure supply could be obtained. His suggestion
is "that milk companies should amalgamate and obtain Parlia-
"mentary powers, somewhat similar to those which the old
"water companies possessed"; that Parliament should "grant,
"to each milk company of a certain size, or, better still, to an
"amalgamation of several companies, an area of distribution,