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I have continued to visit the women and children
notified under the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations,
1908 and 1911. The defects found at these
homes numbered twenty-eight; four of these were overcrowded.
I attended the Conference on Infantile Mortality,
held in the Caxton Hall on August 4th and 5th last.
The papers read on the various subjects which bear
on this work were most instructive and interesting,
as were also the discussions. Some of the points
raised included the following :—(a) That special education
in Infant Hygiene should be included in the curriculum
of medical men; (b) that the training of midwives
was inadequate; (c) that education should do a
great deal to lessen the effects of poverty and its attendant
evils, these being great factors in causing infantile
mortality.
Dr. Truby King, of New Zealand, advocated the
use of the Press for disseminating knowledge concerning
the rearing of children; he also insisted that
the routine practice of making caloric estimates in
infant feeding was the only safe, simple, and effective
way of avoiding grave mistakes.
Dr. Caroline Hedger, of Chicago, in a very instructive
paper on "The Relation of the Education of
the Girl to Infantile Mortality," pointed out the danger
of over-education and wrong education on the reproductive
life of the girl. She says, "Few schools
show constructive ideas on the conservation of the
girl's reproductive life; few schools fit for mother
craft."
The establishment of pregnancy clinics was urged
by Dr. Huntingdon, of Boston, Mass. With reference
to the hand-feeding of infants, dried milks were
especially recommended.
Dr. Hope, of Liverpool, showed that milk can be
effectually sterilised by electrical methods, all