EDUCATION IN INFANT HYGIENE : DISCUSSION 243 



DISCUSSION. 



Dr. F. TRUBY KING (New, Zealand) said he was sure 

 they all greatly appreciated the paper which Dr. La Fetra 

 had read. As a matter of fact, he regarded it as a great 

 privilege to have heard him because personally he had 

 derived more benefit from the Archives of Paediatrics, 

 which he edited, than from any other journal in the world; 

 and he thought they all in the medical profession would be 

 willing to admit that it was the most informative and best 

 journal appearing on the question of women and children, 

 without prejudice to any other. As to the question of 

 criticism, he was afraid that Dr. La Fetra had left them 

 practically nothing to criticize. They must all assent to the 

 proposition which he had put before them. He was par- 

 ticularly gratified to hear the definite pronouncements with 

 regard to such matters as the necessity for the rational 

 modification of milk if it was to be used for the food of 

 a child. The emphasis which the author applied to breast 

 feeding and the definite pronouncement he gave them that 

 the child should not be fed more than every three hours, 

 and his hint that probably it was best not to feed it at night, 

 they would agree with. On the last point he might say 

 he felt somewhat dogmatic, and he would say absolutely 

 that the child should not be fed at night. But taking the 

 whole paper he found practically nothing to criticize. There 

 was one question he would like to ask Dr. La Fetra. 

 One entirely agreed that the universal need was for more 

 capable trained women to advise mothers. At the Anti- 

 podes they could place any number of nurses. They were 

 enormously appreciated, and he had no doubt that in the 

 near future this would be the most important element in 

 raising the standard of health amongst women and children. 

 But when Dr. La Fetra spoke of the dearth of nurses in 

 this direction and the need of well-trained women as district 

 nurses in connection with the care of the mother and child, 

 he would like to ask whether it was recognized generally 

 that for services in this direction it was necessary that the 

 nurses should be cut off from ordinary district nursing 

 where they had to attend people who were sick. He might 

 say that when they had tried to combine what was ordinarily 

 called district nursing with health education as regards 

 mother and child they had found that invariably the nurse's 

 attention had become centred upon the urgent cases of the 

 sick and that practically little time would be found for the 

 care of the mother and child, who were at the time healthy 

 and did not seem to have any pressing call. But the very 

 gist of the whole thing was that the nurse must devote her 



