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to the infants and toddlers at the same session. This was followed
by ante-natal sessions, of which there are two Municipal
and three voluntary. The next development in Maternity and
Child Welfare work was the provision of dental treatment for
children under five yeans of age and pregnant and nursing mothers.
In 1923 a convalescent home was provided at Fairby Grange,
Hartley, near Longfield, Kent, for pregnant and nursing mothers
and children under five years. The Council was enabled to do
this owing to the generosity of Dr Alfred Salter, M P, who
assigned this beautiful old mansion and its twenty acres of ground
to the Council for use as a convalescent home. The house and
the pleasure grounds are under the immediate charge of the
Maternity and Child Welfare Committee, while the farming portion
has been taken over by the Beautification Committee.
One of the most useful schemes which has been started during
the last five years is that which provides milk, free and at halfprice
to nursing mothers and their infants. This was really started
as a voluntary scheme during the war, when a well-known business
man in the Borough provided me with £100 a year, so that I
could supply a certain amount of milk free and half-price to
mothers who were badly in want of nourishment. The scheme
evolved for the expenditure of this money formed the basis of the
subsequent milk scheme. In 1920 a Municipal scheme replaced
the voluntary one, and from this time onwards the amount of
money found by the Council for this purpose has gradually
increased to a maximum expenditure of £6,270 in 1924. In the
latter year a new scale was brought out by the Ministry of
Health, which had the effect of reducing the number of recipients
of milk, so that the amount spent in 1925 was about £2,927, of
which a grant of 50 per cent, is received from the Ministry of
Health. Up to the end of June, 1925, ordinary liquid milk, with
a, certain amount of dried milk, was provided, but after giving
due notice to the milk-vendors in the Borough, nothing but Grade
"A" (Tuberculin Tested) Milk, with a small amount of dried milk,
was supplied to Maternity and Child Welfare cases under the
scheme after that date.