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all these well-known technical difficulties, there is no doubt as to the
main fact being incontrovertible, and, indeed, proved, viz., that infants
and children who have been fed from the Milk Depot during the past 20
years have had an enormous advantage over those not so fed, whether
from a mortality or from a morbidity point of view. On this conclusion,
there can be no two possible opinions, as the individual medical
histories (reported in the records of the Milk Depot) show again and
again. Whilst it is impossible, therefore, to set out exactly in statistical
form the actual saving in life (and illness) that has been effected
directly as the result of the inauguration and maintenance of the Milk
Depot, there are, as a fact, many hundreds of deaths that have been
prevented, and many thousands of attacks of illness that have been
avoided, thereby. This statement must be obvious to all who will
trouble to examine the facts—facts that more than justify the original
decision of the Council in 1903, when it was decided to inaugurate a
Municipal Milk Depot for the Borough of Lambeth, and the subsequent
expenditure, that, of necessity, has had to be incurred both in its
inauguration and maintenance.
It only remains to be added that the good influence of the Milk
Depot, by virtue of its position in York Road, Westminster Bridge
Road, at the northern end of the district, has been mainly restricted to
that particular area (North Lambeth), but it is fair to assume that
similar Milk Depots, or Branch Milk Depots, had such been established
and maintained also on the same lines in other parts of the Lambeth
District, would have given equally successful results from a point of
view of the prevention of infantile and child morbidity and mortality.
Such an extended Scheme, however, was never carried out on account
of the initial (establishment) expenditure, but, fortunately, instead of
such an extended Scheme, a new method of milk distribution for
infants and children and mothers (expectant and nursing) was inaugurated
in 1918. under the Milk (Mothers and Children) Orders, 1918
and 1919, and the Local Authorities (Food Control) Order (No. 1,
1918, and the Local Authorities (Mothers and Children) Order, 1919, respectively,
and, finally, under the amended Milk Assistance Consolidated
(Free and Aided) Supplies Order, which was inaugurated in 1919, under
the Maternity and Child Welfare Act, 1918, this amended Order being
now in working throughout the Borough of Lambeth as a whole,
in connection with, and through, the different Welfare Centres, that are
incorporated in the well known Lambeth Maternity and Child Welfare
Scheme. Large quantities of milk are distributed daily to infants and
children and to expectant and nursing mothers, and are effecting
similar beneficial results over the whole of the Borough as the Milk
Depot has effected for the past 20 years, and is still effecting, in North
Lambeth—the work of the Milk Assistance Scheme and the Milk
Depôt being the same or similar, except that in the latter case (Milk
Depôt) the milk is modified under strict medical supervision, and
distributed all ready for use in separate bottles, one for each feed. In
both cases, infants and children and mothers (expectant and nursing)