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35
point is derived from the women themselves, and I am
convinced that the practice is a very common one.
Sometimes they make themselves so ill that one
experience serves as a lesson for a lifetime, but many of
them have recourse to it again and again. It is not
only themselves that they hurt, but very often the baby
is born after all, perhaps crippled, or it may be without
vitality, or half poisoned. It is hardly to be wondered
at that they should do these things, for they have such
small means, and often such large families. Bight, ten,
or twelve children are frequent, fifteen or sixteen not
uncommon; and I saw one woman who had had twenty.
The poor mothers spend all their lives "going without";
for husband and children are fed and clothed before the
mother gets a chance, and she is continually under-fed
and over-worked. Each new baby is one more to be
kept, but when it has arrived they do not want to lose it.
Women have informed me during this year that they
have taken drugs and other things as follows:—
Hikery Pikery Powder.
Diachylon (Lead Plaister).
Aloes.
Aloes and Grin (hot).
Beecham's Pills.
"Female" Pills.
Gin and Nutmeg, which is taken scalding hot.
One woman takes hot Mustard baths, and many
others purposely fall down stairs or off chairs.
The large majority of the newly-born babies are
breast-fed; the number in 1910 was 1285, as compared
with 76 hand-fed infants and 13 partly so fed. This
was, of course, between two and three weeks after the