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adding nutriment; but these foods arc unsuitable, and only
irritate the infants stomach, and produce indigestion, diarrhœa,
and many other ailments.
Food, clothing, ablution, and exercise must be sufficient,
and of a kind suited to the age, in children as well as adults.
The laws of health are strict, and must be attentively
carried out, if infant mortality is to be reduced.
Houses more suitable for the artizan class should bo
erected and fitted up.
Baths and Washhouses, to prevent the damp occasioned
by washing, and drying, in rooms occupied by the poor.
District Visitors might give important assistance in the
saving of infant life by distributing information to mothers
of the mode best adapted for rearing infants
Causes of the spread of Epidemic Disease.
Epidemic disease may be spread in various ways, the
most common and the most demonstrable being, in my
opinion, through the means of the washerwoman. Our
clothes are sent to be washed, and are returned again in the
shape of what are called clean clothcs; but, if the unhealthy
and unwholesome surroundings of many of the washing
establishments were known, our pleasure would be very
limited at their clean appearance only. Clothes are dried in
wet weather and ironed in the only living room of the operator,
and in which sickness may be at the time existing. People
send, recklessly, clothing infected with epidemic disease to
the washerwoman, and this is mixed with those of the
healthy from other homes.
It is essential, that in cases of sickness, clothes should be
disinfected before being sent to the laundress. The laundress
should be informed when infectious disease exists.
Medical men should demand the proper disinfection of
linen before it leaves the sick room, and it should be a punishable
offence for house-keepers to send infected linen to a
wash-house or laundry with or without proper notice.
The recklessness and selfishness of people who send