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117
Consultation centres; the Town Hall is not in the
centre of the Borough, and it is a long way for
the mothers to come from the more distant parts
of Plumstead, to say nothing of Abbey Wood and
North Woolwich. Only one Eltham mother has
ever come to the weighing. With the present staff
it is not possible to have more than one weighing
centre as it would take too much time from the
domiciliary visiting. The Consultation is, however,
a most useful adjunct to the home visiting.
I find more and more, in visiting the homes after
the notification of births, that a good deal more
than the condition of the particular baby, which
is the occasion of one's visit, needs to be enquired
into. Particularly is this true of the feeding and
condition generally of the children above the age
of infancy and under school age. We have, up to
the present, concentrated somewhat exclusively on
the infant, and I think that, as a result of this,
the infant is now on the whole more hygienically
fed than his brothers of two years and upwards.
I have witnessed the preparation of most unwholesome
kinds of food destined for quite young
children. One mother informed me that her little
girl was so delicate that she could only fancy such
things as sausages for her dinner! I have seen
very small children eating pickles and bread for
their mid-day meal. Apart from such gross errors
as these, children often suffer from the lack of
knowledge on their mother's part qf food values
and how best to expend money on food.
In visiting the homes of Consumptives I