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103
"Attendance at a Hospital on Mondays often
results in failure to attend or late attendance at the
"Welcome," much expenditure of time on the part of
the mother, with the discomfort unwittingly imposed
upon the baby of being weighed twice in the same day.
"All the conditions seen at the "Welcome" point
to the necessity of development.
E. M. Carter."
Summer Diarrhoea.—Table No. 56 shows that the
deaths of infants under one year of age from Diarrhœa
during 1914 were 73, as compared with 45 in 1913 and 22
in 1912.
In order to prevent as much as possible deaths of infants
from summer diarrhœa, which is the main cause of infants'
deaths during the third quarter of the year, booklets on Infant
Care and Feeding are forwarded to the parents of all children
born during the summer months, if summer diarrhoea is prevalent,
and within the last few years the Inspectors of
Nuisances have made rapid surveys of the district, for the
detection and abatement of nuisances in districts in which
infant mortality specially prevails during hot weather. In
addition to these measures, it would be well if it were possible
to undertake an organised system of visiting, during
the summer months, of infants born, say, six months
previously.
Such a measure would tend towards the reduction of the
number of deaths from this cause. It should be observed
that visits of this kind are for the purpose of educating
parents in respect of the precautions they should take during
the summer months, and the full effect of these visits is
cumulative, and can only be obtained if they are regularly
and periodically carried out year by year.