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79
ble for the patients, without regard to any other consideration.
They should be in a position to study their cases
carefully with the most recent scientific appliances and to
prescribe the line of treatment best calculated to restore
health within the shortest time. Further hospital accommodation
is required for children. The Committee have in
course of provision 36 beds at the Municipal Hospital for
the diseases of children. In connection with children's
ailments it is especially important to be in a position to put
the child under proper hospital regime from the commencement
of the illness. Hitherto it has been comparatively
easy to secure a hospital bed for a child suffering from
some gross pathological condition and consequently more
or less unlikely to recover. On the other hand, it has always
been a matter of extreme difficulty to secure the necessary
accommodation for an ailing case from the hospital treatment
of which the best results are to be expected. In addition
to the children who are occasionally ill there are children
who chronically have poor health. Such children do well in
Convalescent Homes and especially under Open Air treatment
and it is desirable that these should be provided for
them. Children of this class if sent into the country and
given good food and care soon repay the trouble and expense
by complete restoration to vigorous vitality.
In connection with child life the control of the milk
supply is important. I think the Local Authority should be
in a position to supply the infants of Willesden with fresh
milk straight from the farm. At the present time milk is
sold which is old and otherwise unsatisfactory and which
has often lost in a great measure the vital properties so
important to the young child. Infant foods, too, should be
under control so that no advertisements regarding them are
issued likely to mislead the public.