View report page

51
Practical measures were taken to prevent epidemic diarrhoea (and
other diseases) in infants and young children, and to promote hygienic
conditions in their feeding and environment, as follows:—
(а) Visiting of houses wherein births were notified under the
Notification of Births Act, 1907, or wherein deaths of infants
and children were registered as having occurred from
epidemic diarrhoea or other diseases of a similar nature.
(6) Teaching of proper feeding and care and management of
infants at the Infants Consultations Centre connected with
the Municipal Milk Depot, and at the Voluntary Consultations
Welfare Centres (14 in number), which are comprised
within the Lambeth Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme,
by the Medical Officers and Staffs attached thereto.
(c) Feeding of necessitous infants and young children through
the Municipal Milk Depot, and through the 14 Voluntary
Welfare Centres, in connection with the Council's Milk
Assistance Scheme, which has been approved by the Ministry
of Health, under the Maternity and Child Welfare Act, 1918.
(d) Issuing of special leaflets on breast feeding and artificial
feeding of infants, and of leaflets and posters during the
summer, dealing with (1) precautions to be taken against
summer, diarrhoea, (2) the danger of the infection and the
contamination of food by flies, (3) the importance of removing
at once all accumulations of refuse and other offensive
matters from the neighbourhood of dwellings, (4) the value of
cleanliness generally, &c.
(e) Voluntary notification of cases of diarrhoea and the free
nursing of infants and children (and others) obtainable under
the Lambeth Nursing (Infectious Diseases) Scheme.
The value of such practical measures is shewn by the various
statistics in this Report, not only for the year 1924, but also for many
years past. The fall in the numbers of deaths registered amongst
infants and children between the ages of 1 and 5 years is remarkable
even after making allowances for the declining birth-rate. More
remarkable is the decline in the deaths registered from diarrhoea (in
infants and children between the ages of 1 and 5 years).
D 2