700 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 



in 1906," said: ''What the mother is the children are. The stream 

 is no better than its source." 



Although it be true that fewer present-day mothers ai-e able to 

 perform their maternal vocation of suckling their offspring than 

 formerly, it is also true that a large number deprive their offspring 

 <jf their natural food through selfishness, laziness, and indifference. 



It would appear, then, that all our efforts to improve the feeding 

 of infants bring us to the one conclusion — ^viz., Education. 



To educate one must teach. Who are the teachers 1 



The medical profession itself can do much more in the future 

 than it has done in the past towards overcoming the ignorance which 

 exists as to infant feeding and management. 



The clergy, too, might on occasion preach with advantage " the 

 next to godliness" and the duty the mother owes to her child and to 

 society. 



But of all reformers in the great movement now on foot to save 

 the lives of the coming race the woman is the first and the best. 



The interests of this Commonwealth are bound up in the interests 

 of each of its separate States, and " not the Fates themselves were 

 more the mistresses of the destinies of our race" than are the women 

 of an educated Commonwealth conversant wdth the art of the preven- 

 tion of disease and the premature death or decay of the young. There 

 is not one single difficulty in the way of making the woman the active 

 domestic health-reformer. 



The only thing that requires to be put forw^ard is the method of 

 hnnging her universally into the work. In this connection woman 

 has a distinctive work. The woman's part in the domestic care and 

 nianagement of her children is all her own. 



W^e men liold our congresses year by year, formulate our laws 

 and administrate our Statutes ; we read our papers and talk more or 

 less learnedly on the deplorable waste of infant life, but be we ever 

 so earnest, and ever so persistent, we shall not move a step in a 

 ])rofitable direction until we carry the women witli us heart and soul 

 t'li this question. 



In saying that the problem of infantile mortality is largely one 

 for our women to solve, I do not wish to imply that all our women- 

 kind are behind in this work. On the contrary, every praise is due 

 to woman as a forerunner in the race. If we take the question of 

 organisation itself, we have to admit that the many admirable Insti- 

 tutions, such as the Ladies' '" Health," " Sanitary," '' Pure Milk," 

 " Infant Protection," " Nursing," and other Associations and Societies 

 have done, and are still doing, a splendid work by their practical aid 

 to mothers, the teaching of the simple and more essential laws of 

 health, the care and management of infants, and, where necessary, 

 the supply of a suitable food. 



The woman sanitary inspector and the lady health visitor are 

 not unfamiliar figures to us in these days. 



In Glasgow, there are 6 women inspectors; in Birmingham, there 

 are 12: in Manchester, there are 20 women health inspectors whose 

 work is on lines very similar to that of male sanitary inspectors. 



