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have to be seriously reconsidered, as experience has demonstrated
that this concession has restricted her work, and therefore
tends to defeat the aims of the Notification of Births Act,
viz.:—the reduction of infant mortality.
There is no desire on the part of the Public Health
Department to come between the Medical Profession of Beckenham
and their patients, but it is common knowledge that the
poor cannot afford, for any lengthened period, skilled medical
advice.
Many women are strongly imbued with the notion that
because Nature has ordained that maternity is their birth
right, that She has at the same time endowed them with an
unerring instinct as to what is best for the offspring—result
disaster, frequently. Others base their claims to knowledge
of infant dietetics by the number of children that they have
lost—the more losses the greater their experience of infant
rearing. Others again fly to equally incompetent though wellmeaning
neighbour matrons for advice in their difficulties.
The specious advertisements in the daily and weekly papers
drawing attention to sure aids to infant feeding become the
sheet anchors of others.
When left to their own devices, whatever these poor people
do is generally the wrong thing, but in their distress to whom
are they to turn for free advice for their babies? There are
no Children's Hospitals in the District to appeal to, London
Children's Hospitals are too expensive to visit by reason of
the travelling expenses, private Doctors are beyond their
means, and the Children's Dispensary near by, which is out
of the District, costs sixpence for medicine. But it is not
medicine they require. What is necessary is advice and instruction,
which does away with the compulsion for medicine.
The Health Visitor carries to these poor people my "Advice
to Mothers on the feeding and care of their Infants," which
also tells them what they should not do. She explains any
little difficulties they may have in regard to my instructions,
and she gives them practical demonstrations on the care of
their infants.
Innovations are not received with open arms by English
people—it is not their custom. The Health Visitor is an