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15
specially noteworthy as showing what can be well accomplished by
voluntary workers throughout the Borough, and how municipal and
voluntary organisations can work together, with great value to the
community. Voluntary help is a very valuable asset in Public Health
Administration in so far as maternity and child welfare are concerned,
and should be used to the utmost by a Sanitary Authority, subject, of
course, to such voluntary work being properly organised.
Cornwall Nursery Hostel, Prince's Road.
The Cornwall Nursery Hostel, Prince's Road, was permanently
closed as an Institution under voluntary management on August ist,
1924. This action had to be taken by the General Committee of
Management, owing to the original founder of the Hostel having
withdrawn her support (financial and otherwise) on account of the
resignation of the Honorary Consulting Physician, due to a difference
of medical opinion as to the value of the particular method of feeding
and treatment of the infants and children admitted.
The Hostel has recently been used for the accommodation
(20 beds) of ailing infants and children (as in-patients) suffering from
dietetic diseases, the so-called deficiency diseases, the result of
irregular or improper feeding, causing malnutrition, rickets, etc., i.e ,
minor acute illnesses, such as would not be suitable for admission to a
General Hospital ; whilst, in addition, 5 beds were reserved for nursing
mothers (for re establishing or increasing mother's breast milk;.
The method of treatment and feeding (based on percentage
feeding), that has been tried is known as the Dr. Truby-King Method,
and careful records have been kept by the Medical Officer of the
Hostel of the results, in each case, of such treatment and feeding.
The result of the Medical Officer's investigations shew that, however
reasonable and scientific the theory that the formula of a baby's
feed should bear a close analogy to that of human milk, it fails
in many cases in its practical application, particularly in the
the abnormal baby. There appears to be something more in human
milk than is expressed in its percentage formula and caloric value, and,
until a fat has been discovered that can be tolerated by the infant,
incalculable harm is being done to the infant population by insisting
upon a strict adherence to percentage feeding. Thirty-nine cases are
dealt with in the Medical Officer's Report, and the deductions arrived
at are set out as follows :—