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46
CONFERENCE WITH MEDICAL OFFICERS.
Owing to so much of my time being taken up with
Smallpox investigations it was not found practicable
to arrange any conferences with the Clinic Medical
Officers during the year.
INFANT CONSULTATIONS.
The work of Infant Consultations has continued
on the same lines as heretofore, that is, the individual
instruction of the mother by the doctor or health visitor.
A few observations by one of the Medical Officers
will be of interest:-
I do wish very much you could manage to let me have
some bit of ground, where the babies could sleep out of
doors during the summer. I know it i.s difficult, but I see
such wonderful results from very humlble arrangements of
this sort elsewhere.
K. Addison.
Working through the case-papers to-day and during the
last few sessions, I am struck by two things:-
(1) How well the young babies get on, whether they are
breast-fed, the mother being helped by encouragement
and milk grants, or bottle-fed under expert
supervision.
(2) How often a child of two or so will be brought
up, either convalescent from a serious illness or
suffering from rickets. When one studies the records
of such cases, one finds a gap of six to twelve
months between this visit and the last, during which
time the damage has been done. One wonders
whether the excellent work of the health visitors
oould not be further called upon to induce the
mothers to continue to bring the children up after
the first difficult year of life is over, instead of
waiting until they are warned by pneumonia or
bandy legs 'that all is not well.
Olive Potter.