INFANT MORTALITY

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 34, 3 November 1933, Page 10

INFANT MORTALITY

Dominion’s Low Record Envied EFFORTS BY CANADA Evidence of the recognition overseas of New Zealand’s success in the reduction of infant and maternal mortality is contained in an appreciation of the work of the Plunket nurses entitled “True Social Service," published on September 16 in “The Mail and Empire,” of Toronto, Canada. A statement by a Canadian doctor published in the same journal, however, to the effect that “among the 300 or so babies brought to the Toronto advice rooms during the long, hot, trying summer months, there was not one case of illness,” is disputed as regards its accuracy by Sir Truby King, under whose notice it has been brought. “I was amazed by this statement, and I can only guess at a probable explanation of the obviously erroneous report in ‘The Mail’ and Empire,’ ’’ he said. “It must be quite clear to anyone knowing anything about the fatality of summer diarrhoea, that many of the infants brought early to the society’s advice-rooms, showing signs of summer diarrhoea, must have been already suffering from more or less grave symptoms of that disease, which, later on kijls so many babies when the thermometer registers 90 or 100 degrees Fahrenheit or upward. Probably Dr. Fisher, who made the statement, after explaining the risks, congratulated the society and its nurses on the fact that none of the babies first brought to the mothercraft centre with summer diarrhoea had failed to recover. However, as I have already, said, this is mere conjecture on my part.” “There is great power in the spoken word.” begins the article in “The Mail and Empire." “We may read that New Zealand, with only one-seventh of Canada’s population, spends between three and four hundred thousand dollars a year on the work of 'the Plunket nurses, known in Toronto by the name of the Canadian Mothercraft Society. We way read, too, that more than 680,Q00 visits were paid by mothers *to nursing centres in which these nurses carry on the Truby King methods. We mav read tliat the medical profession is solidly behind this movement that has set opr sister Dominion on a pedestal, because of the reduction there in infant and maternal mortality and morbidity. But it was a far different and far more convincing thing when the Hon. W. Downie Stewart and Mr. W. Nash, who are here at the Pacific Relations Conference, told of these facts at the Canadian mothercraft advice rooms, 112 College Street, yesterday. Our own Dr. Fisher, .an enthusiast in mothercraft work here, also made some interesting statements, when called on to speak by the society’s president, Mrs, Irving Robertson. Among 300 or so babies brought to the Toronto advice rooms during the long, hot, trying summer months, he said, there was not one case of illness.”