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34
supply alone as being the one and only panacea for preventing
infant mortality. Anyone who studies the causes of infant
mortality knows that other conditions besides the food factor
affect the question. There are, it is true, the alimentary diseases
which indicate the influence of the food factor, and these are of
the greatest importance. But there are also the deaths of infants
due to lung disease (owing to exposure) and to immaturity (owing
to poor physical motherhood), and these cannot be met wholly, or
only, by dealing with the food factor. They must be met, as
they have been in part met in Finsbury, by improved infant
management.*
(3) That during the three years that the Borough has had the
advantage of an Infant Milk Depot, the total infant mortality in
the district has shown a marked and substantial decline.
(4) And that, apart from the actual saving of infant life,
the children on the Depot have, with few exceptions, steadily
improved in health and physique, some of them in quite a remarkable
degree. Thus there can be little doubt that the Depot
has served not only as an instrument of preventive science, but
that it has exerted also a positive effect in helping to lay the
foundations of a good constitution in most of the children who
have used the milk.
Not the least difficult part of the working of an Infant Milk Depot
is its financial control. This, indeed, has been our chief difficulty in
Finsbury. On the one hand, it is important to charge as little as possible
for the milk in order to bring it within the reach of those most needing
its aid; on the other, the efficiency of such a Depot involves an outlay
beyond the mere price of the milk, due to production under excep-
tional conditions and to the expenses of distribution. In Finsbury,
the principle has been adopted of charging the ordinary market price
of milk (4d. per quart) to the mothers attending the Depot, meeting
the expenses of distribution otherwise. The balance-sheet prepared
by the Borough Accountant for the twelve months to 31st December,
1907, is as follows :—
* There can be no doubt that much of the exceptionally good result of the
work of the Depot in 1907 is due to the careful supervision of Miss Jones, the Lady
Sanitary Inspector, who was specially deputed by the Committee to assist in this
experimental work.