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61
The working mother provides a problem which arises very constantly in these
clinics. Either the father keeps a restaurant in which the mother does a large part
of the management and her children have to share her ministrations with the
customers, or the father follows one of those irregular and seasonal occupations
such as scene-shifter, waiter, actor (film-crowd work) when the mother's earnings,
though often appallingly small, give a slight stability to the family. In these
circumstances one feels that the Welfare Centre, and especially the home visits by
the health-visitor, is extremely valuable in keeping the home together and maintaining
the health of the children.
There are in the district served by the Centre a certain number of mothers who
are virtually birds of passage. For this shifting population the Centre has little
opportunity of doing very much : they come, in many cases, from the depressed
areas of Wales and the North of England.
In spite of the difficulties with which many of the families attending the Centre
have to contend, the health of the children and their mothers is, on the whole,
remarkably good. Their skill in mothercraft (shopping, cooking, sewing and
mending) is greater than that of many more purely English populations living on
a similar level, and the Soho section of the children brought to Marshall Street
compares well with those of servants and caretakers who come to the Centre from
their homes in Mayfair.
(Signed) A. Doyne Bell.
Ebury Bridge and Bessborough Street Infant Welfares Centres.
Dr. George Ormiston.
The death of Dr. Ethel M. Vernon was keenly felt by the community which
she served. Dr. Vernon had a thorough knowledge of local conditions, and, by long
years of unselfish devotion to their interests, she had won the complete confidence
and respect of the mothers who attended her clinics.
Dr. Turner carried on Dr. Vernon's work with much acceptance during the
period of transition before I was appointed to the post of welfare officer to the above
Centres in June, 1936.
Changes are, in the nature of things, disturbing to medical work of this type,
which, in order to be of full value, must be sympathetically identified with individual
and family problems. A good knowledge of such problems can only be obtained by
extended experience. I am glad to report at the end of my first year that I am
conscious of progress in this direction. And I take this opportunity of thanking
the centre staffs for their valuable assistance and co-operation.
During the past 20 years, nutrition has emerged as a science upon which the wellbeing
of the race depends. The adequate feeding of infants and children is, therefore,
of vital importance, and demands two basic conditions: first, that food shall be of
the right kind, and second, that the quantity of the food shall be sufficient. The
first condition is met where the food is of good quality and is so constituted that
there is no deficiency such as may lead to rickets, scurvy, or affections of the mucus
membranes or the formation of unhealthy body tissues. The second is met where