INFANT REARING IN AUSTRIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 3117, 10 December 1913, Page 74

INFANT REARING IN AUSTRIA.

A TREMENDOUS PROBLEM. Wo have been permitted to make the following extracts from a letter written by Ur Truby King, in Wien, Austria, to a citizen of Dunedin;— Wo have been in Vienna for if week, and' shall have something to say about our experiences and impressions later on. In the meantime, it will interest you to know, as you have taken such a keen interest in the doings and aspirations of the Viennese Society for the Helping of Mother and Child, that we have investigated matters in this connection very thoroughly hero, and find there is a very .great desjre on the part of Madame von bchrutka and those associated with her to do all in their power for motherhood and babyhood in Austria, especially in the direction of helping the poor and ignorant, among whom infant mortality is so woefully high on the Continent. However, one hoars everywhere in Vienna that, while the Viennese recognise the' wrongs of infancy, and have the desire to improve matters, they are not financially in a position to achieve their aspirations. To my mind the tendency in all directions (not in Austria alone) is to expect too much in the way of reform from the building of costly institutions, with mosaic floors and tiled walls, and from the sc-ttng. up of civil service bureaus, instead of relying more on simple teaching of the mothers of all classes in their own homes, and efforts directed towards inducing a general interest and know ledge in regard to the needs of mother and child. Nearly £IOO,OOO has been spent icccntly in erecting a central bureau lor the care of* children, with a Jjpspital attached, but this deals merely with the care of illegitimate children or the progeny of the very poor—and the “ very poor ” hero means a grinding poverty which wo do not understand in the colonics. The wages of an ordinary working man in Austria arc from 2s 6d to 4s a day, and of skilled artisans 4s to 5s a day! Then there is the danglings Sehutz, in which -Madame yon Schrutka and the late Professor Escrich seem to have boon the leading spirits. Ihis is an admirable institution, doing excellent humanitarian vvoak; but here again attention is given merely to the poor, and it is taken for granted that the women who attend are not of a class who could be brought above a very humble level of maternal aspiration or achievement. ’I he babies are weighed periodically and the mothers are shown ami told certain very simple essentials, besidco bein' 1, supplied witli suitable prepared milk at a° very low price. Ihcse attentions are doing a great deal of good; but the doctor and nurses say that it would be no use to trivo the mothers printed instructions or printed advice, because they would not load, it is significant that no attempt is made to overcome such injurious traditional customs of the country a» closely swaddling and binding the babies during the cany months of life; indeed, this restrictive swaddling is practised by the nurses in the hospitals, and ;s evidently an accepted custom to which no serious objection can have been raised. The general assumption here scorns to do that above the lower levels to which I have referred the ordinary education of the schools is a sufficient protection for mother and child. However, a more enlightened view will prevail in the long run, and the foundations are now being laid of'an institution where it is intended that mothers and nurses will bo taught; but even hero I am afraid that it will be a long tunc before teaching will ho made acceptable and available for what we should call the middle and upper classes, whose needs in regard to education in motherhood are not leas important to the community than those of the poor and submerged. The enormous populations and the fixed prejudices of these older countries render change and reform very difficult, in spite of the great numbers of representative men who hold congress after congress on every subject that concerns the rising generation. There is a congress sitting in V icnna at the present moment of 4CK)O doctors, and they will remain here for a week. At Salzburg, in Southern Austria, where wo stayed en route, there had been a special congress two months previously, attended by some thousands of representatives assembled solely for the purpose of dealing with the question of infant welfare. . But it is not tho Vienna congress that is specially occupying us. One can learn more from the local workers {doctors, nurses, and others) and by visiting tho various institutions, cliniquca, and quarters of the city than in any other way. To-day we have had a series of special appointments keeping us going steadily from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. —starting with a visit with a Dr Klein to an important “Mutter Sclutz,” of which ho has charge, and ending at night with a journey paid to a district where 150,000 of the very poor, living close-packed in barrack tenements, are deriving benefit from a humanitarian scheme started in the interests of mother and child by Dr Scigfncd Weiss, who was one of tho representatives at tho London congress. Dr Weiss showed and explained everything to us, and one can only admire tho spirit in which ho and others are tackling what seems a very forlorn hopo. Tho conditions for child life are on tho whole far worse hero than in England. Indeed, the moro I see of England —oven of London and other congested cities, —the less 1 see why anyone should despair. Just as healthy babies can be

reared in London as elsewhere, even by the poor. The main curse is ignorance, not poverty, though, of course, there are many cases \v-bore poverty and the need for the mother to go out to work are doing- & grave injustice to both mother and child. i I am sure you will realise from what I have said how impossible it is !o form any definite conclusions as to the efficacy of local efforts and systems without investigating them on the spot. What applies to the Continent applies also to America.