158 A CITY'S DUTY IN THE PREVENTION OF INFANT MORTALITY 



their homes; and the city, through its Bureaus of Police and 

 City Property, the Board of Public Education, and the following 

 divisions of the Department of Public Health and Charities, 

 Medical Inspection, Nuisance Inspection, House Drainage In- 

 spection, Milk Inspection, Meat and Cattle Inspection, Tenement 

 House Inspection, School Nurses, Visiting Nurses, Children's 

 Agent in charge of Dependent Children, and special agents for 

 advice and information. The Bureau of Municipal Research 

 supplied two nurses and one clerk; the Society for Organizing 

 Charity, one clerk; the Visiting Nurse Society, two nurses; the 

 Phipps Institute, one nurse; the Starr center, two nurses; the 

 Babies Alliance, one nurse, and the Lighthouse, two nurses; all 

 of whom reported to the Municipal Department having in charge 

 the infant mortality work. 



Additional appropriations were received from City Councils 

 covering the general expense. The Medical Inspectors of the 

 Bureau of Health delivered lectures in the public schools, illus- 

 trated by paraphernalia used in the care of the baby, applied to 

 living subjects, in the presence of the older girls and their par- 

 ents. The education of the mother was continued in the homes 

 by personal instructions and demonstrations by the nurses. The 

 milk stations, too, were educational centers ; in many, medical 

 clinics were established. Exhibits on the "Care of the Baby" 

 were most effective teachers. They were placed in milk stations, 

 schools, the city piers, and other institutions, and consisted of 

 graphic charts, display cards, photographs, sketches and mod- 

 els, which depicted the proper hygiene and care of the infant. 



Classes for mothers were held once a week in several sections 

 of the city with prizes provided by the Babies Alliance and the 

 ''Lighthouse" for those babies showing best results. The 

 Philadelphia Modified Milk Society, without cost to the city, 

 opened eight new stations, maintaining eighteen in all. Owing 

 to the absence of proper facilities in the hospitals for the care 

 of sick babies, two large city piers were altered and furnished 

 by the city as open air hospitals, with modified milk stations, 

 physicians and municipal nurses in attendance, and accomoda- 

 tions for mothers and older children. Here, too, exhibits were 

 installed. The Philadelphia Playground Association equipped 

 playgrounds with apparatus, and furnished attendants and in- 

 structors on both piers which provided amusement for the older 

 children allowing the mother to give her undivided time to the 

 sick infant. On these piers lectures were given to the caretakers 

 in preparation of food, washing and care of the baby. 



The Police Department was quite active in the campaign. 

 Instructions to nurses were phoned to the various police sta- 

 tions, where they called, daily, at stated intervals for communi- 



