PRESIDENT'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS 29 



and Belgravia, and double or treble what it is where women 

 of the same class do not go out to work. I hold strongly 

 the view that for at least four months before the child is 

 born, and longer after the child is born, mothers should be 

 mothers and not machines. (Cheers.) In a Birmingham 

 area and you have the facts in a paper before you the 

 infant mortality is 200 per 1,000. Eighty per cent, of the 

 mothers work in factories from the time of leaving school; 

 60 per cent, continue to work after marriage. Surely on 

 these figures it can be said that where industry flourishes 

 and married women labour there children decay. I hope 

 that this Conference will realize that what is true of Bir- 

 mingham and of Burnley is true of Preston and many other 

 districts all of which, however, are infinitely better in this 

 regard than they were seven years ago. I do not say it in 

 any invidious sense but I think motherhood and the rearing 

 of children and of a happy race of fine boys and girls are 

 the noblest of all callings; we should see that it is not made 

 the meanest of trades. 



Why do I put this in this way? Because this can be 

 done. You, Sir Thomas Barlow, worthily represent a great 

 profession. I believe with all its faults yours is still the 

 greatest of all professions (laughter) and it is great not 

 only because it does so much for the community which 

 the community cannot do so well for themselves, but 

 because it does so much for its own wives and children. 

 I have been looking into the infant mortality in your profes- 

 sion, and I find that doctors' babies die only at the rate of 

 40 per 1,000. In the upper and middle classes the rate is 

 77 per 1,000, among artizans 100 to 130, miners 160, and 

 unskilled labourers 150; among agricultural labourers, not- 

 withstanding their brutally low wages, the infant mortality 

 is only 97 per 1,000. These facts show what the doctor can 

 do by skill, and above all, by persistent attention continu- 

 ously in small things for his own wife and family. The 

 community is going to ask the doctor to do for everybody 

 what he does so well for himself. You are too generous to 

 keep to yourselves what was meant for mankind. 



These facts also show that high wages in themselves are 

 not sufficient, because high wages \vith drink and hi^h 

 wages with drink always mean inferior housing are more 

 fatal to the child than low waives with ,good air, reasonable 

 housing, and restful surroundings. Man does not live by 

 money alone. Thf^Jrnportant things are sobriety, care. 

 cle.aTtlintJKM, \vi^fe"e7lriig; and not too much feeding, for in 

 certain sections ol the community as much iil-h^ullh re 

 imposed on children by over and unwise feeding as by 



