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137
The War has made infant welfare work of greater importance
than before. Infant life has risen in value owing
to the immense wastage of life that is going on at the
Front. Moreover, social conditions at home resulting from
the War are not favourable to the preservation of infant life.
During the time of the South African War the infant deathrate
in Woolwich reached the highest point of the last 25
years; and this at a time of great local material prosperity.
The infant death-rate declined steadily in the years that
followed while Woolwich went through a period of
distress
and poverty caused by unemployment. The death-rate fell,
not as the result of poverty but in spite of it, and largely
as the result of the steady work, educational and otherwise,
done to further infant welfare by the Public Health Department.
There is no fear that the infant mortality rate, which
stands at 84 per 1,000 for the year under review, will return
to 150, the average for the years of the South African War,
because the work which has been done will tell, and there is
to-day a m,uch higher standard of mother-craft than there
was 15 years ago. But some rise in the infant death-rate
may be expected as the result of the disturbed conditions
through which we are passing.
It is to be regretted that the attendance at the Infant
Consultation showed a marked diminution directly War
broke out, and it has remained considerably below the
average of the previous year in spite of persistent efforts
on my part to get the attendance back to the standard of
the time previous to the War. One can readily understand
that the mothers axe more inclined to visit neighbours and
discuss war news, which in many cases has some personal
interest to them, than to come to the Town Hall to get
advice a,bout the babies.