ANTE-NATAL HYGIENE : DISCUSSION 375 



of that. The medical officer of health of the borough 

 or the area in which such an association was working ought 

 to have supreme administrative control. Too often the 

 medical officer of health had no time, and perhaps no 

 inclination, to undertake the clinical work, but he did think 

 the administrative control ought to be in his hands. With 

 regard to the financial question, this was a public health 

 work and they ought to look to the municipality for the 

 money to carry it on. Many of them were doing the work 

 voluntarily in a honorary capacity and they were glad to 

 do so, but why when they did the city's work ought they 

 not to get also the city's pay? Aberdeen at first had great 

 difficulty in getting the necessary funds. They had to get 

 ordinary charity to help them to go on. Then they went 

 to the Council and told them they were giving them less 

 than they would give to a swimming club, and yet they 

 were saving hundreds of lives. Now they had taught them 

 better things, and they saw it was really part of their 

 own public health work and they were financing them, and 

 he thought they would find there would be no d : fficulty 

 about the money. He would like to say one word about 

 the registration of stillbirths. His interest in the work was 

 clinical purely, but he felt that in this matter notification 

 of stillbirths was not enough, and registration of stillbirths 

 was not enough. They wanted to go further and have 

 registration of abortions. They wanted to have registra- 

 tion of pregnancies and then they would be able to do 

 something to check this terrible loss of life before birth. 

 He felt that this was one of the most important parts of 

 their work. He did not know what their practice was in 

 England or the Colonies, but in Scotland they did not need 

 to have any registration of a stillbirth. That was to say 

 thev did not require to give any certificate. It had to be 

 notified according to the Notification of Births Act, but the 

 mother or the father could send to the cemetery authorities 

 and get the latter to come and take away the baby. 



Miss ETHEL BROWN (Infant Protection Visitor, Hornsey) 

 said she had only one short question to ask. The two 

 papers had dealt with schools for mothers. She would like 

 to ask whether there should not be some kind of institution 

 or recognized school for young men about to be married. 



Dr. WALLER (North St. Pancras School for Mothers) 

 said he would like a little more information on the 

 point of ante-natal hygiene. There had been a tendency 

 to look on exercise and work as a bad factor in the 

 pregnant woman. He was not at all sure that it was. 

 It was his habit to give advice to a pregnant woman 



