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novation, and the Notification of Births Act is an innovation,
and when these novelties have become a habit, it will be
realised by the members of the community for whom these
innovations have been created and others, that there is really
no harm in them, but on the contrary a great deal of good.
It is unfortunate that greater advantage has not been
taken of the Health Visitor's services in regard to Infant
Management. Some Beckenham mothers must get into their
heads that knowledge of babies has to be acquired by study
like any other art; cooking for instance, which does not come
by Nature, although it is man's necessity to eat.
Nor is matrimony an essential preliminary to acquiring
a knowledge of babies, and therefore no mother who has not
studied the subject need feel ashamed of or disgraced by
being instructed by an unmarried woman who has.
On the contrary she should display her good sense by
striving to learn how she can grow up a fine healthy baby
instead of carrying in her arms a miserable, wizened infant,
with one foot constantly in the grave, which is no credit to
her and an object of sympathy for her neighbours.
New Born Infants and Ophthalmia.
But the adoption of the Notification of Births Act
renders it possible to obtain prompt notice of, and to draw
attention to, that terrible scourge of new-born infants known
as Ophthalmia Neonatorum, and which is responsible for so
large a proportion of the number of our sightless population.
To efficiently deal with this malady, which infants contract
during the act of birth from infected maternal parturient
passages, treatment to be of any avail must be prompt.
I have no present means of determining how many infants
in Beckenham suffer in this way, but I have drawn up
a memorandum of instructions relating to Ophthalmia Neonatorum,
which will be immediately delivered to those parents
who have provided the necessity for notification of Birth to
the Public Health Department. It runs as follows:—