66 DISCUSSION 



are needed they may be had by resorting to the City Hospital, and so 

 we have almost every week calls to furnish wet nurses. This we are 

 only too glad to do, and I look through the obstetrical and gyneco- 

 logical wards for women who are suitable for this and who are in 

 almost all cases anxious for the money, and I encourage the families 

 getting these wet nurses to pay a reasonable sum. Some of them are 

 quite able to pay, and are almost always willing to do so. They 

 usually pay from six to eight dollars a week for these nurses. These 

 women must take with them also on leaving the hospital their own 

 baby and must assure its care before leaving the hospital. 

 Question: How do you require this assurance? 



Dr. Frescoln: By simply having them tell us that they will look 

 out for the child, take it with them and also feed it. Unfortunately, 

 in connection with our institution we have not the personal super- 

 vsion of these women that I wish we had. 



Mrs. Wm. Lowell Putnam, Boston: While we were doing this 

 work, which we have now given over to the Infants' Hospital, we 

 started a plan of having women who had too much milk for their 

 own babies go out to nurse by the day merely, or, if it was necessary, 

 to spend the night, but in any case they always took their own baby 

 with them. My object in mentioning this is merely that it seemed to 

 us a desirable thing because most of our women were of a self- 

 respecting class. There were almost no illegitimate children. And 

 to have a self-respecting, nice woman in one's house is very much 

 pleasanter than to be compelled to have one who is not, and, other 

 things being equal, it is very much more desirable. It seems to me 

 that the work done by the District Nursing Association with the 

 Floating Hospital is very desrable in that it does not take the woman 

 away from her home. 



Dr. C. O. Probst, Secretary of the State Board of Health, Colum- 

 bus, Ohio: One feature that has not come out is the licensing of 

 these places where women go to have their children, or the boarding 

 out hospitals. A law has been enacted in the State of Ohio and the 

 matter placed under the State Board of Health so that no one may 

 run such a place without a license from that Board. And before the 

 license is granted an examination is made of the proprietress and 

 the hospital, and no child born in such an institution can be placed 

 anywhere in the State without the knowledge and consent of the 

 authorities. 



