How the minority report deals with the sick, the infirm, and the infants / The National Committee to Promote the Break-up of the Poor Law.

  • National Committee to Promote the Break-up of the Poor Law.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: How the minority report deals with the sick, the infirm, and the infants / The National Committee to Promote the Break-up of the Poor Law. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    to be reported to the Medical Officer of Health; they suggest hygienic improvements in the household; if the baby is ailing they are often able to suggest the cause and remedy; and, finally, if the case looks serious, they urge the obtaining of further professional advice either by the calling in of a doctor for payment, or by application to the Relieving Officer for the attendance of the District Medical Officer. In a dozen towns (St. Helens since 1899; a^so Liverpool, Battersea, Finsbury, Lambeth, Woolwich, Glasgow, Leicester) the Health Authority has gone a step further. It provides a municipal milk depot, or rather a “ milk dispensary,” at which babies requiring artificial feeding are supplied with pure milk (and hygienic feeding teats) on payment of a small sum. At Liverpool this has developed into an elaborate organisation with branch depots in various parts of the city, supplying “ humanised sterilised milk ” of seven different grades, for infants of various ages (in addition to the babies brought to the depots) to many hundred families by direct delivery. But the special interest of the “ milk dispensary ” to the sanitarian is the personal supervision which it enables the Medical Officer of Health to exercise over these ailing babies. At Finsbury the supply of the milk was made conditional on the babies being brought regularly for inspection, accurate weighing, and hygienic advice. Those who cannot be brought are visited in their homes. At Glasgow a qualified medical practitioner (lady) visits every home as a matter of course. Practically, though not * avowedly, the Medical Officer of Health becomes the Medical attendant of each of these infants; to whom, indeed, he not infrequently supplies the milk gratuitously rather than let them die or compel the destitute parents to u go through the rigmarole ” of obtaining Poor Law relief for them. “ During the hotter portion of the year,” reports the Medical Officer of Health for Norwich, “ and to a lesser extent since, with the sanction of the Health Committee, I have distributed (through the lady health visitor) a considerable quantity of dried milk powder to necessitous mothers and, on the whole, have been well satisfied with the results.” The Health Visitors are not confined to infant visiting. They often go at once to every house at which either an infantile death or a death from phthisis or any infectious disease is notified, with a view of inquiring into the sanitary condition of the premises, ensuring the execution of any