BABIES IN THE DESERT

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1938, Page 18

BABIES IN THE DESERT

BATHING WITHOUT WATER

With the numerous hints on hygiene, the clinics, and day nurseries, one wonders how the white mothers of the out. back and the aboriginal women manage to keep their offspring alive, But beautiful baby specimens are to be found in the most remote places. During a compulsory visit to Oldea, on the trans-Australian railway route (1 had got out of the train to have a look around, and it had gone on without me), I came across some of Australia's very best, states an overseas writer. Mrs. Daisy Bates, a journalist and undenominational missionary, was in charge of them. There was no water, but the babies were bathed daily. Their bath was the warm desert sand. They were rolled over and over, and came out as clean as whistles. They were as happy as little "sand boys." Mrs Bates has spent almost twenty years among the aborigines. There is very little infant mortality, she says. When water is scarce, the sand is dry, and adults as well as babies use ii for bathing purposes. Sometimes one wonders about all this hygiene.