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be a suggested increase in the ante-natal work of the general practitioner.
Moreover, a leading article in The Lancet of May 15th
states :—
" The obstetricians and the general practitioners have not
resolved their difference of opinion whether, inside the public
maternity service, midwifery should be concentrated into the
hands of those practitioners whose aptitude and experience
most certainly entitle them to undertake this work ; and the
establishment of local obstetric committees, which it was hoped
might prove fair and not unfriendly arbiters, has so far been
resisted. Clearly, a smooth inauguration of the generalpractice
and maternity services would not be easy without the
guidance of these statutory Committees."
It is at least satisfactory to find that there has not been a
disproportionate mortality in the women who have attended the
municipal ante-natal clinics in the last twelve years. Considerable
emphasis has been laid at the clinics on the normahty of childbearing,
and there is insistence at all the local authority clinics—
ante-natal, child welfare and school—on the importance of good
nutrition.
In 1935 in Leyton we were already supplying milk, cod liver
oil and iron to expectant mothers who were considered to be in
need of extra nourishment, and in that year a proposal was put
to the Ministry of Health to supply in addition eggs, fresh fruit and
vegetables by means of vouchers. At the time this scheme was
not sanctioned by the Ministry of Health but it is interesting to
find that a similar scheme is now in operation for all expectant
mothers. An obstetrician who apparently considers some good
work has been done by the local authority clinics has recently stated
in an article on ante-natal care :—
" The recent war was a testing time and served to show
on what solid foundations the maternity and child welfare
service has been built. It was the Government's nutrition
policy—including a system of food priorities—that maintained
and improved the health of mothers and children."—(Nixon).
In the same article Professor Nixon states that in ante-natal
work in the past much harm has been done by emphasising the
abnormal, that the ante-natal chnic ought to be used for spreading
the gospel of positive health, but that the chance is often missed.
Whether the concentration of ante-natal work in the hands of
hospital officers and general practitioners will lessen the emphasis
on the abnormal for the average healthy woman, and prevent