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10
On pages 62 and 63 will be found tables giving infantile
mortality rates since 1900, and the dates of adoption of special
measures directed towards the prevention of infantile mortality.
It must not be forgotten when examining these annual
infantile mortality rates that the War period and subsequent
unemployment and inadequacy of sanitary housing accommodation
have introduced most important adverse conditions.
It is estimated that for each infant death from preventible
causes there are three infants who survive in a more or less
damaged condition, and that there are not less than a million
children of school age at the present time " in such physical condition
that they are unable to derive reasonable benefit from the
education that the State provides."
There has very recently been an attempt to abolish the provision
of infant foods at the Welfare Centres, and to refer the
parents to the ordinary trade sources of supply.
It is almost unanimously the opinion of medical practitioners
in charge of Centres that one of the most beneficial activities of
a Centre is the provision, as cheaply as possible, of pure and
nourishing foods for infants.
Dr. Wilks states that the people attending the Centres are
poor, and could not afford the chemist's price for dried milk.
"They would fall back on fresh milk, which they dilute more as
money runs out at the end of the week, or on cheap patent foods,
or barley water and sugar. The new milks at reduced prices
are a boon to the neighbourhood. They have helped to kill the
patent foods. It is the same with 'Marylebone Cream and Cod
Liver Oil; these are used when inexpensive, and if people have
to pay the chemist's price, they will not have them. We shall
have more cases of rickets to contend with."
But even more unsuitable foods than those mentioned are
used for infants. In the Local Government Board Report on