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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.
The Local Government Board had under their consideration the excessive
child mortality, especially from diarrhoea and enteritis, which accompanied the
very hot and dry summer of 1911. They realised that some excess of mortality
over that occuring in the cool and wet summers was inevitable, and suggested
the following lines along which it was most important that action should be
taken:—
Firstly it is important that exact advice should be given as to the feeding and
management of children and more generally as to preventing the exposure of
their food to contamination from decomposing organic matter. The distribution
of clearly worded leaflets is useful in this connection : but even more important
are personal visits and the offer of practical advice to the mother of babies born
within the last twelve months. Exact and simple instructions are most likely
to be followed if given during a period of special danger. In districts and
towns in which the Notification of Births Act has been adopted, the records
obtained under that Act will give valuable information in selecting the homes
to which visits are now most urgently required.
Secondly, the full value of the personal instructions indicated above cannot
be realised unless vigorous efforts are made to prevent the accumulation in or
in the vicinity of the house of decomposing animal or vegetable matter. It
is not necessary to do more than mention the importance of efficient scavenging
of frequent and if practicable daily removal of house and stable refuse, of
domestic cleanliness, and of keeping all food properly protected. The Council
may consider it advisable during the next few weeks to divert the sanitary
inspectors from less urgent work, and to instruct them to make rapid visits
with a view to securing efficient sanitation, especially in and about the
houses of the working classes.
Thirdly, it is important that the Council should promptly ascertain in which
parts of their district diarrhoea is especially prevalent, and should devote close
attention to street and court scavenging and to the removal of stable and
domestic refuse in these areas. Without waiting for the weekly death returns,
efforts should be made to obtain information of cases of diarrhoea from health
visitors and others who make domestic visits, and to impress upon parents the
importance of immediate treatment of infantile diarrhoea. Apart from the
medical notification of cases of epidemicidiarrhoea in children, the vistis of health
visitors can be utilised for impressing upon parents the seriousness of diarrhoea
amongst young children and the desirability of information being given to the
Medical Officer of Health should a case of diarrhoea occur.
During the year a North St. Pancras School for Mothers was started by a
Committee of Ladies and Gentlemen, who obtained the use of a large room
at 4, Rhyl Street, Maiden Road, Kentish Town. This new School is doing
excellent work and increasing rapidly.