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She has worked with a devotion of which it is difficult to speak too
highly, and to her efforts must be attributed much of the gratifying
fall in our infantile mortality figures in 1906. Mrs. Fisher, however,
can give but a comparatively small part of her time to this work, she
has many other duties to carry out, and there is much need of an
additional lady inspector to develop the work of health visiting that
has lately been begun with so much promise in Hampstead.
One more point remains to be considered. In the prevention
of infantile mortality difficulties are met with that health visiting,
valuable as it is, can do little to remove. In all large centres of
population there are many young infants for whom breast-feeding is
impossible. This is a fact that must be faced as well as deplored.
It is this residuum of hand-fed babies that gives rise to most of the
more pressing problems of infantile mortality. All methods of
hand-feeding young infants are deplorable, but some are better than
others, and one of the most important functions of the health visitor
is to instruct mothers in the less harmful methods. But it is one
thing to know how to feed a baby artificially, and quite another thing
to be able to do it. The proper modification and preparation of
cow's milk for the consumption of young infants can only be done
by observing certain conditions that are often difficult enough to
fulfil even in the small family of the well-to-do household. In the large
family of the over-worked housewife in the overcrowded homes of
the poor, the difficulties of hand-feeding are great, and any measures
that tend to remove those difficulties deserve careful consideration.
It is well to emphasise this point, for in some recent popular
discussions on this subject much has been said about the ignorance
and short-comings of the working-class mother, and very little about
the difficulties against which she has to contend.
In the movement for the prevention of infantile mortality that
is now developing in this country, increasing attention is being given
to the methods employed in France, where the welfare of infant
life is studied with an interest and enthusiasm that contrast favourably
with the comparative apathy that still prevails in this country.
One of the most popular of the French institutions for the prevention
of infantile mortality is the Goutte de Lait, which, under the
name of "Infants' Milk Depot," was introduced into England
in 1899 by. the St. Helens Corporation. The work of these