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who cannot be breast-fed, and the systematic medical and
clinical study of the effect of the milk on the infants and
children using it. The infants and children dealt with
belong to the poorer classes, and the large majority are, at
the time of commencing to use the milk, in a weakly and
wasted condition, as far as general health is concerned—the
most suitable cases for treatment by a municipality. The
lessons to be learned from the first six months of working of
the Lambeth Milk Depot may be summed up as follows :—
(1) The lines upon which the Lambeth Milk Depot is
being run are proving satisfactory, more especially
the medical supervision of the depot and the infants
and children using the milk, together with the systematic
and careful medical study of the effects of
such milk on those fed upon it.
(2) The depot has already saved the lives of several
infants and children and improved the general
health of others, and even allowing for the smallness
of the numbers of infants and children dealt
with, and their different age-periods, together with
the varying lengths of time during which the milk
has been used, there has been amongst such a
marked lessening of the infantile mortality rate—
58 to 90 per 1,000 amongst those fed upon the
depot milk, as compared with 177 to 273 per 1,000
amongst those fed elsewhere in the neighbourhood
(Marsh and Bishop's Wards), or 151 per 1,000 for
the whole of the infants throughout the Borough of
Lambeth.
(3) The educational value of the depot is proving
portant for mothers and others—the visiting of the
infants and children at their homes being specially
noteworthy in this respect.
(4) That the first six months of the work carried out in
connection with the Lambeth Milk Depot has
proved that infants and children properly and regularly
fed (even on artificial lines) do well, and
escape, not only death, but also ill-health—the
common results of improper and irregular feeding.
Having regard to these lessons, which have been learnt
from the first six months of working of the Lambeth Milk