AUTHORITIES' RESPONSIBILITIES : DISCUSSION 153 



best fit herself so as to prepare for the ordeal and to feed 

 her children after. The lady visitor took a copy of that 

 little book to each of the mothers she visited, and it was 

 left with them to think over. Their relieving officer also 

 took a copy of the book to every woman who had charge 

 of infants for fee or reward. They had the satisfaction of 

 knowing that the book to which she was referring was in 

 the hands of nearly every mother in Portsmouth, and that 

 in consequence the people need not err through ignorance. 

 She was glad to say that the mothers thoroughly appreciated 

 the work of the health visitor, and they frequently brought 

 their babies to the Town Hall to be examined by that lady, 

 who took a great interest in all the children with whom she 

 came into contact. 



Alderman S. CRESSWELL (Wandsworth) said it was with 

 some diffidence that he stood before the members of such 

 an assembly of experts, but he wished to say a word on a 

 subject that was more closely connected with infant mortality 

 than any other subject, and which had not been referred 

 to by any of the previous speakers he referred to the 

 'complaint of measles. If there was one subject more than 

 any other which they ought to consider in connection with 

 that question it was that of measles, which was always more 

 or less with them. It was a malady which was running 

 right through the whole of the country. Professor Lawes, 

 an eminent sanitary lecturer, had told them that they never 

 had less than 200,000 cases in the year in Great Britain, and 

 the same gentleman went on to point out that they had 

 10,000 deaths from that complaint alone in a year, and yet 

 they went on year after year and seemed to take no notice 

 of it whatever. He thought it was deplorable and lament- 

 able in the extreme that they should let that great loss of 

 infant life go on year after year. A previous speaker had 

 spoken about the poor; it was the poor that lost their 

 children more than any other class from measles, for they 

 had no means of protecting them in their own homes, and 

 the result was that the children of the poor were subjected 

 to infection much more than those of the better classes. 

 The poor were compelled to send their children to school 

 in a district where there was an epidemic raging, and, pro- 

 vided the particular child had had the measles himself, the 

 mothers laboured under the foolish fallacy that no child 

 could have the disease more than once, and therefore 

 they took no trouble to guard their children against 

 infection. He thought it was wrong in the extreme to let 

 that state of things go on year after year. They would ask 

 him what was the remedy. He thought that the remedy 



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