244 MEDICAL SECTION 



whole attention to this most important matter. Then as 

 they had been told this subject of paediatrics should be 

 elevated to a higher position" in all universities and divorced 

 from other chairs. He held that nurses should be separated 

 from ordinary sick nursing because the matter of healthy 

 motherhood was of such supreme importance that it should 

 be her sole care and occupation. One other matter he 

 would refer to was that of payment, and as to whether the 

 services of the nurses he had referred to would in the States 

 be available for mothers of all classes. The conclusion in 

 Xew Zealand was that the mothers of poor children were 

 not more in need of advice or information than the mothers 

 of the rich children, and therefore they made the services 

 of their nurses equally open to the mothers of all classes, 

 and those services were given gratuitously, just as their 

 education was free. They indeed considered this a most 

 important plank in the programme of education, and he 

 would like to know if that view was taken in the States, 

 and if so how far Dr. La Fetra agreed with it. 



Dr. KERLEY (New York) said it was not necessary to 

 remind them of the necessity of lowering the rate of infant 

 mortality as that had been done by Mr. John Burns. The 

 point was not what they must do or what they ought to do, 

 but how it was to be done. What was it the baby required? 

 A baby was born into the world through no volition of its 

 own, and it had the right to demand certain things, which 

 indeed were very simple. These were fresh air, good 

 food, suitable environment, and adequate clothing, and it 

 demanded no more than any of the lower animals required. 

 It would seem that these requirements were not of such a 

 stupendous nature as to call for a consensus of opinion to 

 bring about relief, yet such was the case because of the ideas 

 which had come down to them as regards the cheapness of 

 human life. Voluntary societies did a great deal, as they 

 had already learned. Most of these societies, however, 

 worked only in congested districts, which after all formed 

 but a comparatively small part of the country; and they had 

 towns and villages in the open country where the children 

 were not getting adequate protection and supervision. The 

 time was now ripe for a system of central control. What 

 was wanted was for the various Governments to take up the 

 matter, to establish bureaus at various points, and to help 

 them with nurses and supervising doctors, and so get to 

 know what each Ward of the State was doing. If that 

 were done then the infantile mortality rate of 40 per 

 thousand which Mr. Burns told them was the monopoly of 

 the doctors would very soon become the general rate. They 



