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year in and year out against destitution and1 want. I have often
noted that with many such mothers their greatest need is not advice
and instruction by health visitors, but rather some practical assistance
so a,s to make a possibility of what they already realise to be the
proper thing to do.
The remedies recommended by Dr. Newsholme are:—A more
detailed investigation of all deaths occurring in infancy as a guide
to administrative action; enquiries into the circumstances attending
still-births; the adequate training of midwives; the efficent administration
of the Midwives Act; the adoption of the Notification of Births
Act; and the making of arrangements for the giving of instruction
on infant hygiene. But the foremost means of securing a low infant
mortality are: Efficient domestic and municipal sanitation and housing,
and intelligent and painstaking motherhood. There is much
machinery which has already been devised to meet this last-mentioned
end, including paid and voluntary women health visitors, schools for
mothers, consultation centres for mothers, infant milk depots, and in
some of the London Boroughs nursing and expectant mothers are able to
avail themselves of the opportunities provided by philanthropic bodies
of obtaining meals at trivial cost. Moreover, much assistance has
been given in the same direction through such legislative enactments
as the Notification of Births Act and the Midwives Act.
Senile Mortality.-- Of the 598 deaths, 225 were of persons over
G5 years of age. The proportion of deaths occurring among those of
over 65 years of age to the total deaths is, therefore, 37.6 per cent.