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Infantile Mortality.— Owing to the declining
birth rate, which has been progressive for some years
past, public attention has in all sorts of ways been
drawn to the excessive and disproportionate waste of
infantile life, especially in the larger towns and
in manufacturing districts, and Table V. specifies
the majority of the causes of deaths with the cases
due to such causes. By the means of reliable
statistics, a more accurate knowledge of the causation
of death will be arrived at, and efforts will
certainly be made to combat the evil and reduce the
mortality where excessive. Already in several large
towns, and in three of the London Boroughs, a milk
supply under municipal control is provided, and elsewhere
creches or day nurseries are established where
there is a large proportion of female workers, for the
proper care of infants and their feeding during the
time the mothers are at work. Last year I mentioned
that it was "a matter of national importance
that Elementary Hygiene should be taught in our
Public Bay Schools, as thousands of lives were
annually lost to the country by the gross ignorance
on the part of mothers of the proper feeding of an
infant." Though something has been attempted in
this way, much yet remains to be done. Voluntary
lectures, if well delivered and under attractive conditions,
can do much to disseminate knowledge.
Some 25 years ago I gave half-a-dozen courses of six
lectures each in "First-aid" or Ambulance work,
and I remember there was an average attendance of
40 per lecture; since then these lectures have at
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