Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Annual report on the public health of Finsbury for the year 1912
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been allowed to sleep until washing time. The mother was very
dirty and slovenly. She had only lost one child, She never woke
her children to feed them, " the more sleep they gets the longer
and healthier they grows,"
7. The father was a cloth shrinker out of work. The mother
was an artificial flower maker and went out daily at 8.30 a.m.,
leaving the child entirely alone, unfed and unwashed until 8 p.m.
or later. The baby was wasting and vomiting.
8. The mother gave her baby 8 months old breast milk and
boiled bread. She would not give it cow's milk or condensed
milk because she " knew that two milks would not mix."
9. The baby was 6 weeks old, first born and premature. It
was being breast fed and had in addition one feed of oatmeal daily
as " the child needed something stronger than breast milk."
10. The baby was 3 weeks old, dirty, thin, wasting, clad in
cotton only and had a scabbed head. The mother was a drinker
and stated that the baby " had no right to be thin as it took half
a pound of patent biscuits every day."
11. The father was a casual labourer. The mother had to
wean her baby at 6 weeks in order to go to work to support herself
and her two children. She paid the next door neighbour 5s. per
week to take care of her children. This neighbour had 6 children
of her own and " did what she could for the baby but gave it up
because it cried so much and took up too much of her time." It
was being fed on diluted cow's milk. The mother kept at her
work and found another " nurse.'' The infant wasted and died.
12. The father was in prison. The mother was a rag sorter
working from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. She took her child with her
in the morning and left her with " a person near the shop " where
she went in several times a day to breast feed it. The mother,
baby and three children occupied one room and slept in one bed.
13. The baby was 5 weeks old and the fourth child. Only
two were now living. It was breast-fed and slept with its mother.