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Council, to appoint a visitor. The final success of those who worked
so energetically for this appointment now gives them a strategic advantage.
The infantile mortality of Camberwell in past years
obstinately refused to show the "damaging effects" of the remissness
of the Council in not obediently falling into line as regards the
appointment so often urged on them. Now their old opponents hold
the field, in that a diminishing mortality can be pointed out, and
since health visitors are universal no contradictory evidence in the
way of a district which has no exceptional mortality and has no
health visitor on its staff can be adduced. However, my views are
no longer in accord with those of the Council, and I will not
weary them with the arguments they have heard so often,
but will content myself with giving a table brought up to date, as
shown by the statistics of the Medical Officer of Health of the
London County Council, showing Camberwell's position among its
compeers. The advocates of the appointment may well be left to
derive any satisfaction they can from the figures.
But to those who have not yet made up their mind I am bound
to point out that there is an enormous mass of opinion in their favour
among those who have nothing to gain by Welfare Centres.
The fact of practically all Medical Officers of Health being in their
favour is a tremendous argument against the views set out above.
Fashions however change and I can remember when to doubt the
absolute necessity of an intercepting trap was an unpardonable sin
outside Camberwell.
The infantile mortality in No. 1 Ward calls for some special
comment, for it was here that the first Maternity Centre was established
in May, 1921, and where the first health visitor of the Council
inaugurated its new policy.
The rate last year reached the low figure of 62, compared with
111 in 1920, a notable accompaniment to the appointment of a
visitor. It is, however, somewhat discounted by the fact that in
No. 12 Ward the rate went from 100 to 59 and in No. 14 Ward from
96 to 60. It is fairly obvious, then, that there are more important
causes at work than an official health visitor.