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Diarrhœal mortality is greater in dry seasons, and
less in wet seasons.
This cause is a climatic and apparently an
originating cause, and is beyond our control; but in
so far as it affects our food and social conditions, a
better knowledge of the necessary hygienic or health
precautions that could and should be taken would, if
put in force, do an immense deal to minimise the
consequences, more especially amongst children and
infants.
In connection with a declining birth rate and a
preventable waste of infant life, it is a matter of
national importance that, hand-in-hand with a
betterment in the hygienic surroundings of the
infant, which the sanitary authority can and does
control, there should be a better knowledge of the
method of rearing it.
To anyone who has had a long and intimate
experience with the methods of feeding and rearing
children that prevail amongst the working classes, it
is lamentable to see the little progress that has been
made during the last thirty years, and beyond what
may be put down to a better selection of foods and,
certainly in this district, better and purer milk, the
maternal knowledge has not advanced to any great
extent. How could it be otherwise, when no instruction
is available and experience is only gained by
crude experiment on their own offspring '?
I am not alone of the opinion that it is a matter
of national importance that Elementary Hygiene
should be taught in our Public Day Schools.
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