INFANTILE MORTALITY. 699 



mothers Avill have cause to bless the name of Lady Chelmsford, to 

 whose kindly influence and interest the proposed depot has already 

 been placed on a solid basis. 



An infants' milk depot, however, is not, and cannot be made, a 

 profit-earning- concern, and while the grant of £300 per year from 

 the Government will do much to meet the necessary expenses and 

 somewhat heavy initial outlay, the depot will still have to depend 

 largely on funds from the charitable and more philanthropic portion 

 of the community. 



In Glasgow, Huddersfield, Dundee, and other places, the local 

 authorities have adopted what is known as the " Bounty " System, a 

 gift of £1 sterling to the mother of each child born between certain 

 dates, provided the child survives the first year of life. Whether it 

 is desirable that the bounty scheme should be applied generally is not 

 at all certain, but this much at least may b© said of it, "that the 

 cardinal principle of taking the child life at the very commencement 

 with a view to the prevention of disease is a sound principle." 



One word as to the utility of creches as a measure in the preven- 

 tion of infant mortality. 



The factoiy creche is not, of covu-se, the same thing as an ordi- 

 nary creche ; the former is merely a nursery where children are called 

 for during the mother's absence at her employment. There is, how- 

 ever, a large number of women who are forced to go out to work 

 daily, leaving their babies to the care of ignorant and dirty land- 

 ladies, or to inexperienced children of an older age. Reasons sufficient 

 to justify the existence of a creche can be found if only on the 

 grounds that the child brought to he creche must be clean. The 

 mother is therefore taught the necessity for cleanliness. The child is 

 also properly fed and cared for during at least a portion of the day. 

 The possibilities of the creche as an educational factor should not 

 be overlooked. A suggestion has been made for its use as a " School 

 for demonstrating' to elder girls the principle of Infant Hygiene, in 

 actual practice with real babies." 



Educative. 



Now, if the defective feeding of infants, and the impaired nutri- 

 tion resulting from it, be the most important condition giving rise 

 to the deaths of infants, it is obvious that the women, and particu- 

 larly the mothers of the community, have a special and peculiar 

 interest in this question of infantile mortality. 



Whatever the causes of artificial feeding may be — physical in- 

 ability of the mothers to suckle their offspring, or inability on the 

 woman's part by reason of engagement in some industrial pursuit, or 

 selfish considerations — the disinclination by reason of the trouble 

 juaternal feeding involves and the divorce it necessarily entails from 

 social pleasures and pursuits — whatever may be the cause, this one 

 fact stands clear — viz., that from 3- to h of infant deaths would be 

 expunged from mortality records if the mothers were able, universally, 

 to breast-feed their infants. 



The Kt. Hon. John Burns, President of the Local Government 

 Board, in his address to the National Conference on " Infant Mortality 



