DR. F. TRUBY KING'S PAPER 259 



THE KARITANE HARRIS HOSPITAL. 



Within a few months of the foundation of the 

 Society a hospital devoted to babies the first in 

 Australasia was established. 



Starting with a few local babies this institution 

 now receives infants from all parts of the Dominion. 

 When I left New Zealand there were twenty-four 

 inmates under care, viz. : twenty-one babies and 

 three mothers. 



In one sense the healing of sick babies is the 

 least important aspect of our hospital work. The 

 institution is a school for mothers, an ever open 

 object-lesson, by means of which some thousands o 

 visitors of all classes see and are taught personally 

 every year the essentials for healthy motherhood and 

 babyhood, while mothers who have any trouble with 

 their babies, are encouraged to become inmates for 

 a week or ten days, so that they may be set on the 

 right track. 



Most women on returning to their homes become 

 centres of light and leading for their friends and 

 neighbours ; thus health reform spreads from home 

 to home and from district to district. 



Not only is the hospital held available for the 

 teaching of actual mothers, but we encourage potential 

 mothers girls in their teens and expectant mothers 

 to attend weekly lessons and demonstrations, or to 

 enter the institution for a short course of training. 

 Further, a guild of sixty girls was organized some 

 years ago, each to spend an afternoon once a month 

 handling and looking after the babies in the grounds, 

 thus helping to provide the " mothering " element, 

 apt to be lacking in institutions, and at the same time 

 implanting and developing motherly tendencies and 

 aptitudes in the girls themselves. 



Last, but not least, the Karitane Harris Hospital 

 is used by the university as the institution for the 

 practical and' clinical teaching of paediatrics to our 



