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31
The examples given below refer to this period. One hundred
and forty-four children used comforters or dummy teats, and in all
but six instances these were dirty and a source of danger. In
nearly every case the mother only possessed one comforter.
I
Illustrative examples.—
1. A baby four months old suffered from indigestion. The
mother was giving the child semolina pudding, tea, sponge fingers,
breast milk, and in the intervals between the feeds—some fried fish
to suck and chew. The mother had plenty of breast-milk.
2. A mother fed her twins on brandy and water. She herself
drank gin. She explained that "brandy was better than gin for .
babies.''
3. A child two months old, was eating a raw unripe tomato.
The mother said "she didn't know it was bad for them—she
thought tomatoes were good for the children."
4. The father had been out of work for ten months. The
mother was a bookfolder working two days a week. She took in
for the baby a half-penny-worth of milk in the morning and the
same amount in the evening. This was kept in a dirty broken
jug used also for ale. The family occupied one ground floor back
room and consisted of the parents and two children aged three
years, and ten months respectively.
Sleeping Accommodation.—Only ten of the babies slept in
a separate cot. The rest slept with their parents. When it is
remembered that last year 15 Finsbury children were overlain in
bed by their parents, the importance of separate sleeping accommodation
cannot be over estimated. A cheap cot can easily be
made out of a banana crate or an orange box. In one house the
child slept in an ordinary galvanised washing vessel, and in
another case in the bottom drawer of a chest ot drawers.
It is quite common to find that even though the baby sleeps in
a separate cot by day, yet at night it usually sleeps with its
parents.