AUTHORITIES' RESPONSIBILITIES : DISCUSSION 151 



tions which prevailed. Dundee was, unfortunately^ a city 

 of low wages. It was a city in which the male workers 

 in the jute industry were paid low wages, and also it was 

 a city in which they had an immense amount of women's 

 labour, and when he told them that in Dundee they had 

 fully 24 per cent, of their married women engaged in mills 

 and factories earning wages ranging from about 125. to 

 153. a week, and very often the husbands earning no more, 

 they could easily see that the economic conditions which 

 existed in the city were important factors in their infantile 

 mortality, and he had very great sympathy indeed with the 

 previous speaker, who spoke with regard to the immense 

 importance which economic conditions had in connection 

 with the subject of infant mortality. He had no solution 

 for the problem unfortunately, but he was quite convinced 

 that with them in Dundee the poverty that followed upon 

 low wages was a very important factor. 



Dr. F. SHUFFLEBOTHAM (Staffordshire County Council) 

 said he only desired to say a few words and to call 

 t special attention to the paper that had been read by 

 'Sir William Thompson. They could learn a very great 

 deal from the statistics which he had placed before 

 the Conference with regard to the conditions which 

 prevailed in Ireland, from which they saw that infant 

 mortality was considerably lower than it was in Great 

 Britain, and Sir W. Thompson rightly pointed out the 

 cause of that, viz., that the mothers in Ireland, speaking 

 generally, suckled their own children, and it was for every 

 member of that Conference to do everything in his or her 

 power to encourage that method of feeding babes as far as 

 they possibly could. Sir W. Thompson pointed out some- 

 thing else he gave them the facts, but he drew no con- 

 clusion from it, and, with the permission of Sir William, 

 he (Dr. Shufflebotham) would like to draw attention to the 

 point. He told them that the figures regarding infant 

 mortality in Ireland were lower than for the rest of Great 

 Britain, and that marasmus, meaning atrophy and weakness, 

 were the principal causes of infant mortality in that country. 

 They could not overlook the fact that if marasmus (inherent 

 weakness) was the principal cause of infant mortality, it 

 simply showed that the mothers who were suckling their 

 children were not having sufficient food, and he wbuld 

 impress upon those societies at the Conference who repre- 

 sented voluntary workers to pay special attention to that 

 phase of the question. It seemed to him that if they had 

 got the interests of the children at heart, that they must 

 have the interest of these suckling mothers at heart as well; 



