356 MEDICAL SECTION 



striking. The daughters of alcoholics were not able to 

 nurse their offspring except in a very small percentage of 

 cases. 



The CHAIRMAN said they had to remember that they were 

 dealing with syphilis. It was a most delicate subject, and 

 one the medical profession was disinclined to discuss, but 

 to-day it was one of the most important questions, and they 

 must face the issue and discuss the matter, and he hoped 

 something would result from such discussion. He noticed 

 in reading through the different papers presented to the 

 different sections that there was a great divergence of 

 opinion in regard to the registration of stillbirths. He 

 saw that the authors of some of the papers said they should 

 not be registered, whilst Dr. Ballantyne said they should 

 be registered. Personally, he thought they should all 

 be registered. It was, in his opinion, the only way of 

 getting at many of the difficult problems of criminal negli- 

 gence on the part of parents, and he thought there should 

 be some positive pronouncement on the part of this Con- 

 ference with regard to the matter. 



Dr. MARY BOOTH (Commonwealth of Australia) said that 

 in regard to the last question which had been raised, it must 

 be remembered that registration of stillbirths would enable 

 them to determine accurately the ratio of sex. It was the 

 commonly held opinion that more male children were born 

 but that more girls survived. She would like to know if 

 there was not the possibility of some fallacy in regard to 

 this view. Registration would throw a very important 

 light on vital statistics, for it was quite possible that they 

 had been arguing on wrong premises in the past- because 

 they had not had the registration of the sexes of stillborn 

 children. 



Miss MAYNARD asked to say a word with regard to the 

 registration of stillbirths. In her experience as an Inspector 

 of Midwives she considered it was shown to be absolutely 

 necessary, for the very simple reason that all the so-called 

 stillbirths were not stillbirths. Personally, she was instru- 

 mental in causing the exhumation of the bodies of two or 

 three children who were buried as stillbirths, and it was 

 found that they had lived for some hours. In many cases 

 also she was instrumental in obtaining post-mortem exami- 

 nations of children who were about to be buried as still- 

 births, in which it was proved that they had made vigorous 

 efforts at respiration. They had simply been murdered. 

 She thought the experience of most inspectors and workers 

 would bear her out that many of the children buried as still- 

 births were not so born. 



