488 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Housing of the Mother and Child, and the Provision for the Protection of Infant 

 Life, and an excellent account is also given of the aims and work of the Scottish 

 Travelling Exhibition of Maternity and Child Welfare Work. An illuminating 

 section is devoted to the consideration of the Birth-rate. The Report is not 

 limited to a discussion of problems of infant life, but a large part of the volume is 

 devoted to the consideration of questions touching the welfare of Pre-School 

 Children and Children of School Age. To the chapter on the General Care for 

 the Medical Supervision of the Pre-School Child, Dr. Lewis D. Cruickshank 

 contributes a statement regarding the Prevalence of Defects among School 

 Entrants. The information given regarding deaths and death-rates of pre-school 

 children, and the causes of morbidity and mortality among this class deserve 

 fullest study. There is an excellent chapter on Provisions for Tuberculous chil- 

 dren, and particulars are given of existing agencies for necessitous cases in 

 Children's Hospitals, Convalescent Homes, Centres for Crippled and Invalid 

 Children, Holiday and Rest Homes, Recuperative Schools and other Institutions. 

 A series of Chapters are devoted to the consideration of the Day Care of Chil- 

 dren, in Creches or Day Nurseries, Toddlers' Playgrounds, Play Centres and 

 Open Spaces, Kindergartens and Educational Institutions. Special chapters deal 

 with such subjects as the Provision of Nurses in Scotland, Medical Service in the 

 Highlands and Islands, Reports by medical observers well acquainted with the 

 problems of the district described. The reports regarding the local conditions 

 existing in various parts of Scotland will be of immense value in aiding schemes for 

 reconstruction and readjustment of existing measures dealing with the organisation 

 and administration of central and local agencies working for the improvement of 

 human conditions. Dr. Leslie Mackenzie has devoted the best part of an excep- 

 tionally industrious life to scientifically directed endeavour for the betterment of 

 human life in Scotland, and in this volume he has presented in condensed form 

 much of the knowledge he has accumulated. It is no dry and dreary formulation of 

 facts, but is vitalised throughout by the spirit and purpose of the highest patriotism- 

 The volume closes with a striking epilogue from which we make bold to take the 

 following extract : " The war clouds dim our vision of the facts at home. But 

 in war or peace, there is this constant struggle for a living and a life. To-day it 

 is the mother in her distress that needs help and care ; to-morrow it is the infant, 

 new born ; the third day the one or the other is found — the tale of inadequate 

 service, of danger, of damage, of disease and death is nearly the same, varying a 

 little in local colour but never in substance. . . . The laws that supplement and 

 support the innumerable impulses of philanthropy are not measures that can be 

 formulated, passed, and enforced once for all ; they are themselves the means and 

 symbol of a progressive and continuous organisation of the social energies, adjust- 

 ing them in degree to all the phases of distress, disablement, and disease. The 

 full development of the powers written in the law this generation will not see, but 

 it is in this generation that they have taken their new form. In all the varying 

 phases of these national problems— the concentration of the peoples, the growth 

 of institutions, the rise of new organisations and agencies— there is visible always 

 one uniting principle : the need to preserve the life of the new-born child." We 

 understand the Carnegie Trust are now considering ways and means whereby the 

 Scottish people may be provided with a National Institute of Maternity and 

 Child Welfare. We trust that this great purpose may speedily be brought to 

 fruition. The noble volume of Dr. Leslie Mackenzie and his loyal coadjutors has 

 been as good seed which has fallen on a soil from which rich harvests may be 

 garnered. 



