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the Bible Women and Nurses' Mission, who wrote
as follows :—
"Visiting in Clerkenwell, as Superintendent of a District Nurse,
I find our work much hampered by the dirty condition of our
patient's bedding. Two-thirds of our nurse's cases are lying-in
women, and their feather or flock beds are in a state of tilth which
can scarcely be imagined, except by a doctor or nurse accustomed to
work among the very poor.
"Needless to say the risk of blood-poisoning and other mischief is
very great, and we have lost one woman from blood-poisoning,
caused chiefly by the insanitary condition of her bedding. We propose
lending a palliasse to these women, on condition that before
their confinement they should wash the ticking of their own bed;
but the difficulty will be in getting the feathers, or wool, purified,
and we shall be very grateful if you will help us in this matter by
allowing them to be baked in the oven used by your Sanitary Officer
for disinfecting purposes."
International Congress of Hygiene and
Demography.—In May, 1891, the Vestry received
an invitation to appoint delegates to attend this
Congress in the following August. The subjects
for discussion being all more or less intimately connected
with the work carried on by Vestries and
other local authorities, and it being intended that
the results of the Congress would be made available
to all by the printing of the full transactions,
and (if funds are available) the statistical and other
information gathered from Municipal and Sanitary
Authorities throughout the Kingdom, the Vestry
appointed Mr. Putterill and Mr. Dixie, the Chairman
and ViceChairman, and Mr. Evan Jones, a
member of the Sanitary Committee, as their delegates,
and subscribed a moderate sum to the funds.
The delegates presented the following report:—
Your Committee beg to submit to you a short report of the work
on which they have been engaged as Delegates from the Vestry to
the abovementioned Congress.
Your Committee attended the opening: meeting at St. James's
Hall ; the attendance at which was sufficient to show that this most