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13
As a rule they have no equipment—although some, greatly
daring, have been known to produce enema syringes—faulty,
leaking and repaired with string or sealing wax, and to give
vaginal douches. They appear to wash themselves occasionally,
but to wash their patients only on request. They regard the use
of a nail brush as an unnecessary and crazy refinement, verging
on the metempiric and transcendental.
They consider as their special perquisite the care of the baby's
navel, with dire results to the infant. By their rough and ready
methods they have prematurely pulled the cord away, leaving an
open wound, which they dress improperly with Fuller's Earth or
with burnt rag.
They leave the diapers in the bedroom until the mother notices
their offensive character, and requests their removal.
They are paid six or eight shillings per week. Some have their
food in addition. They have one cure-all—gin—for the ailments
of a lying-in mother, and if gin fails—more gin. One attended a
mother in her confinement, and did not notice that the after-birth
had not completely come away. It was expelled on the fifth day.
She stated that she had "brought thousands of children into the
world." Another lived in a slum, was consumptive, dirty, short
of breath and "weak on her legs." She went out "nursing"
whenever her strength permitted of it.
It is a pity that the hospitals which now work in the district do
not establish an efficient service of maternity nurses to displace
some of these noisome and unsavoury "Gamps."
By the provisions of the Notification of Births Act, local
Registrars are allowed to inspect the notifications received, and to
compare them with their own lists of registered births. By this
means it is possible to trace those parents who have not sent information
to the Public Health Office. To these a printed form is
sent drawing attention to the omission and asking that the notice
shall be sent. This has always been effective.
In 1913, the number of notices of omission sent to parents was
199.