SIR GEORGE NEWMAN'S ADDRESS 273 



I want to make one further observation with regard to 

 the papers which are to be read. I believe there is a very 

 intimate connection, and not only intimate, but organic and 

 vital, between education broadly understood and broadly 

 interpreted, and those other methods for the reduction of 

 infantile mortality. Our friends and colleagues in the 

 States and in Canada have interpreted the solution of these 

 problems very much along the lines of associating education 

 in one form or another with the various other means which 

 are used for the reduction of infantile mortality. We have 

 five or six papers to be read by capable workers on the 

 question of milk supply, and I want to say, if I may, without 

 reflecting in any way on other people's views, that I believe 

 in connection with the milk supply in its relation to the 

 prevention of infantile mortality we need to remember that 

 education ought to be the predominant factor. I with 

 others in this room am guilty of having started a milk depot 

 in a district for which I was the Medical Officer in 1904, and 

 in which we used both the fresh and pasteurized milk and 

 dried milk, and the distinct feature of that depot was that we 

 created something which was so happily afterwards called 

 a school for mothers. That is to say, we would only feed 

 the child of the mother who would attend the babies' clinic, 

 and receive from the medical and nursing staff something in 

 the form of the elements and preliminaries of education, 

 and I am convinced that where a milk depot is properly 

 associated with what is now called a school of mothers there 

 you have a splendid result, but where you endeavour to 

 proceed without practical demonstration and feeding there 

 you will find your results will be of unequal value. Some- 

 times your methods will succeed, and sometimes they will 

 fail. So I would like to combine education with those other 

 methods by which we are stemming the tide of infantile 

 mortality in almost all parts of the British Empire as 

 distinguished from the great Russian Empire, where in 

 Moscow the toll is 333 per thousand, and at St. Petersburg 

 it is very little less absolutely gigantic mortality. In the 

 British Empire we have been able to get ahead in the last 

 few years, because there has been a sound extension of 

 education, a better milk supply, and progress in other direc- 

 tions. We have to educate the mothers. But we must 

 keep on training the child in the elementary schools so that 

 with the mother at the one end and the child at the other 

 end we shall be able to bring our system of education 

 to bear in such a way as will, I think, yield good practical 

 results. In all this educational work, as we have heard 

 from others to-day, we require and it is not a luxury but 



