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47
[1909
It is a fortunate circumstance, however, that man is able to do something
and is doing something in many places to combat these adverse atmospheric
influences, for by providing teachers for mothers they are shown how they
may so prepare their infants' food and so protect it and keep it safe from
them that it may become a source of health and not a danger to
those who partake of it. Man is pre-eminently the animal who can
adapt himself to atmospheric and terrestrial influences; and he does this
either by altering his clothing or his food to suit the climate, or if necessary
both. And this preparation of food is one of the main things necessary to be
done to preserve the lives of children, who, in addition to the protection of
their food, should themselves have protection against their deadly foes : cold,
damp and draughts, as well as the closeness, the stuffiness and the foul air of
the rooms in which they live and which can be easily got rid of by the open
window. They have learned to understand the benefit of pure air better in
New York than in London, for there in the summer time, when the infants
suffer from the intensely hot air of urban dwellings, they with their mothers
are moved, mainly through voluntary effort, but with official co-operation, to open
camps, and seaside and floating hospitals, which institutions are also of great
service in teaching mothers the proper way to bring up children. And there,
too, according to a paper read by Mr. Robert Simon before the French
Academy of Medicine, the milk supply intended for infants is safeguarded by
the issue of a certificate under the supervision of the municipal laboratories,
but it is only issued from day to day and requires compliance with the
following conditions:—
1. It must come from cows that have been tested with tuberculin.
2. It must not contain more than 30,000 bacteria per cubic
centimetre.
3. It must be sent out in sealed bottles kept in ice.
4. It must be sold at the latest 36 hours after milking.
5. The bottles must be filled and sealed at the farm and not in
New York.
We sadly require some such safeguards in London.
In that City also specially trained nurses make frequent visits to
families in which there are very young infants, and they keep regular observation
on pregnant women of the working classes. And the result of these visits has
been that whereas the mortality was 17.1 per cent, among the infants born of poor
parents that were not brought under the notice of the visiting nurses until the day
after birth, it was only 4.7 per cent, when the mothers had received attention from