View report page

51
[1909
munities throughout the kingdom and appoint Health Visitors*, who are now
a fully recognised part of the preventive machinery of public health work.
The duty of the Medical Officer of Health is very clear with respect to these
important adjuncts of public health administration, and, therefore, he can have
no hesitation in tendering advice to appoint such visitors, although he may
know that such advice is not altogether acceptable to many of the members
of the authority whose adviser he is. Nevertheless, it is his bounden duty to
give it, and, therefore he cannot shirk his duty. He has already set out that
advice very fully in a report dated October 7th, 1907, the first recommendation
of which was accepted, namely, the adoption of the Notification of Births Act,
1907, but the second and third recommendations, the appointment of three
Health Visitors, and the encouragement of voluntary associations to assist the
Health Visitors, were not accepted.
The necessity for such appointments has now passed out of the
experimental stage, for unless it is asserted, and who would dare say so ? that
the Councils of the great municipal boroughs are faddists and sentimentalists,
their wisdom cannot be doubted. Indeed, the great towns have always led
the way in every great movement intended to ameliorate the conditions under
which the people live, while the Metropolis has invariably lagged behind.
*In a leaflet published by the National League for Physical Education and Improvement, the
result of 173 replies from Medical Officers of Health throughout the couDtry show that there are 90
places with 174 health visitors paid entirely out of the rates, 9 with 22 health visitors, including 11 in
Salford, partly paid from the rates, and 20 with 70 rate paid women sanitary inspectors, whose
duties include the work of health visiting. 54 report Voluntary Organisations co-operate with health
departments or working independently with 33 paid workers, including nurses and a large number of
honorary helpers. In some places, notably Cambridge, health visiting by a paid staff is thoroughly
organised by a voluntary organisation which entirely relieves the health department of this work.
In Manchester the Corporation has taken over all the 14 paid visitors formerly employed by the
Ladies' Health Society.
^ In Miss Helen M. Blagg's " Statistical Analysis of Infantile Mortality and its causes in the
United Kingdom," a return is given which shows that 27 out of the 32 greatest towns of England
and Wales possess Health Visitors.
E 2