AMAND ROUTH, M.D., F.R.C.P., ON MOTHERHOOD. 77 



1 played the role of Dr. Routh, to the great surprise of the parties, 

 who thought they had kept their secret. Poor fools ! a practice 

 that was destroying the health of both. Now they know better I 

 trust all will be well. 



" Referring to pages 68, 69, I strongly oppose all plans whereby 

 the worthy and thrifty are taxed to support the unworthy and 

 thriftless. Let us have Socialism at once if you like, but do not 

 rob the hen-roosts that the tramps may be fed on omelettes ! I 

 beheve in the survival of the fittest, and that does not mean those 

 who are spoon-fed by the State. All these plans mean simply 

 the taxing out of existence the honest man and his thrifty wife that 

 the loafer and bone-idle ones may with their temporary mates 

 be tempted by handsome monetary gifts to load the State with a 

 burden it will then have to bear from cradle to grave." 



Author's Reply. 



Dr. Routh thanked Dr. Mary Scharlieb and Dr. Schofield for 

 their approval of his views on Sex Education and Family Life and 

 the value of Maternal Lactation. Whilst health certificates before 

 marriage were idealistically desirable, it was impracticable for 

 many reasons to make them compulsory. He agreed with 

 Dr. Scharlieb that both prospective partners and their parents 

 were getting more anxious that marriages should be between healthy 

 persons. 



He agreed with Dr. Collingwood that the transmission of hereditary 

 mental disease was especially to be avoided. 



It is not easy, as Colonel Mackinlay has so well said, to prepare 

 a growing girl for marriage, maternity and family life, but much 

 was now being done in council and other public and private schools 

 and in continuation classes to give instruction in domestic hygiene 

 in all these matters. 



Dr. Routh preferred our EngUsh Laws of matrimony to the Scotch 

 Laws as described by Dr. Anderson-Berry, but agreed with him 

 and Colonel Alves and others that, as he had stated in his address, 

 endowment of Motherhood was only possible in cases of real necessity, 

 such as widows left with families, who had little or no assured 



