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52
convinced that one of the reasons why the incidence of Diarrhoeal
Diseases has been excessive has been the extensive prevalence of
artificial feeding. The disadvantages of artificial feeding were
further accentuated by the absence of the mother from the home,
and by carelessness and ignorance and lack of cleanliness in the
preparation of the food.
It is impossible, of course, to dissociate the effects of married
female labour from those of poverty, and in social questions causes
and effects may occupy positions of mutual dependence and transferability.
Many of the women are occupied in the laundries,
not from choice, but from necessity, and are widows or the wives
of men whose earnings are insufficient to maintain the home in
comfort.
The excessive mortality from Bronchitis and Pneumonia is
also in part one of the effects of married female labour. The
mother has to take her baby to be cared for In the morning as
she proceeds to work and fetch him again in the evening. Under
the best of conditions the child was liable to contract Respiratory
Diseases, but in former years the mother had no option but to
leave the child in the charge of a " baby minder." The mother
did not select the house where the baby was cared for on
sanitary grounds, and the standard of cleanliness which usually
obtained in the " baby-minder's " house was below that of the
average for the neighbourhood. In 1908 the South Acton Day
Nursery was opened, and it has been undoubtedly the means of
improving the conditions under which the children ire cared for.
It is well known that prior to 1901 in very few places had
efforts been directed for the specific purpose of reducing the
infantile mortality. The passage of the Public Health Act, 1875,
marked an epoch in sanitary development, and the work carried
out under that Act had for its object the improvement of the
sanitary conditions under which the community lived, and to
this extent affected infantile mortality. The reason why this
general work did not affect the infantile mortality figures is
probably accounted for by the fact that the increased urbanisation
of the population for a time more than counteracted the good