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The prevention and treatment of dental caries and
deformities of the dental arch.
At this clinic expectant mothers and children will obtain
treatment, advice, supervision, and, when necessary, will
be referred to special or to general hospitals for consultation
or for operative interference.
Cases of tuberculosis will be referred to a suitable
dispensary.
The records obtained at such a clinic will be of very
great value to the Hoard of Education.
It is to be noted that the scheme is only concerned with nursing
mothers, with expectant mothers, and with children under school
age. The ccntre is meant to be a maternity centre and a child
welfare centre, not a general sick dispensary for the treatment of
all and sundry women and children.
The foregoing observations on the memorandum of the Local
Government Board show what exceedingly important measures
are brought within, its scope, and indicate the completion of the
public health chain and of the sanitary legislative advance foreshadowed
by the Medical Inspection of School Children,, the Public
Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations, and the National Insurance
Act. The health of the people is now an affair of State from
before birth to old age. In the next annual report a full account
will be given of the various Finsbury activities which deal with
maternity and child welfare and the spheres of their usefulness.
HEALTH VISITATION.
The duties of the Lady Health Visitors are, briefly:—
1. To visit systematically, and to revisit, all the births in the
poorer streets and some of the births in the better class districts.
2. To instruct the mothers, and especially young mothers with
first children or twins, in the feeding and proper care of their
babies.
3. To watch carefully over the child's health and progress, and
to take the necessary steps by advice or by reference to medical or
philanthropic agencies to safeguard the child's prospects and the
mother's nourishment and circumstances.