61 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



mother and child in a special hospital, and the 

 measures there adopted nearly always save the 

 child's sight. 



Under the Notification of Births Act information 

 of each birth is given to the Medical Officer of 

 Health within thirty-six hours, and every mother in 

 the poorer parts of the city is at once visited by a 

 female Sanitary Inspector. More than 20,000 such 

 visits are paid annually. The mother is helped and 

 advised about her own health and that of the child, 

 if such help is needful, while cards giving simple and 

 easily understood rules for the care of the infant are 

 distributed. There is great need for this guidance, 

 for the ignorance of some of these poor mothers is 

 appalling. Such articles of food as red herring or 

 sausage h#ve often been observed to be given to a 

 baby a week or .two old, also whisky, brandy, or gin. 

 I once saw a mother cram her baby's mouth with 

 pork pie. All this is done with the best intention, 

 but with most fatal result. 



The absolute necessity of feeding from the breast 

 is urged, and the avoidance, if possible, of all other 

 food. When bottles are needed, care is taken to 

 prevent the use of long tubes, or of any kind of bottle 

 that cannot be readily cleansed. Bottles have often 

 been found so foul that the contents when given to 

 an animal have rapidly caused death. 



If it is thought that the nursing mother is herself 

 insufficiently fed, rations of good cow's milk are 

 supplied daily for her own consumption by the city. 

 When it is impossible for the mother to give the 

 infant its natural food, and when ordinary cow's milk 

 disagrees, the city provides a form of specially 

 humanized cow's milk of varying strength for different 

 ages at a low price, or, when necessary, gratuitously. 

 The cost to the city of this provision is about ^3,000 

 a year. No food, of course, can be as good for the 

 infant as the breast milk, but still the death-rate 



