j^^^. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



the mothers being fairly well educated otherwise although 

 knowing, nothing of babies. I suppose any medical 

 practitioner could supply hundreds of similar instances. 

 Surely there is something wTong with a system of education 

 which' teaches a girl who is presumably going to be a 

 mother, nothing whatever about maternal duties and 

 responsibilities. Motherhood is, or ought to be, the 

 su;^reme crown of nearly every woman's life, and her 

 education ought first of all and before everything else, 

 fit lier for that which is her greatest duty, if also her greatest 

 privilege and happiness, and this could easily be done 

 without in the slightest degree sacrificing her general 

 education. There is no question that good mothers are the 

 greatest asset of any nation, and we ought to see to it that 

 the education of our girls fits them for that high position. 

 Tliere is another direction in which even quicker results 

 can be obtained in lowering the infant death rate — ^that 

 of stopping the milk poisoning. It is universally agreed 

 by sanitarians that the high infant mortaUty of the summer 

 months is due to bacteria in milk, bacteria to which adults 

 are mostly immune. These bacteria get into the milk 

 after it leaves the cow's udder, in other words, they 

 get there through filthy methods of milking and storing 

 the milk. Milk, when it leaves the udder of a healthy cow, 

 is in a sterile condition. The calf gets sterile milk, the baby 

 gets the filthy, milk. It has been pointed out that if the 

 death rate among calves was as high as among babies, 

 every breeder of cows would soon become bankrupt. We 

 kill during the early summer months more than one baby 

 avery day in the Brisbane district, through this filthy 

 milk, yet practically no steps are *aken to stop the 

 le<?alised murder, . Several municipalities in other countries 

 have demonstrated that this particular waste of human 

 life can be stopped, and they have stopped it, and at a 

 very small cost indee^. One London hospital actually 

 bought a farm, got a healthy herd together, milked the 

 cows' with milking machines under perfect sanitary con- 

 ditions, separated. the milk, chilled the separated milk and 

 cream, sent them by rail in chilled storage to London, 

 and then got the pure wholesome cold-stored products for 

 mixing, again for each child as prescribed, at a smaller 



