THE FATAL GRANDMOTHER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9171, 13 June 1901, Page 1

THE FATAL GRANDMOTHER.

"I have no hesitation m saying that more than 50 per cent, of the infant deaths m Stockport, and a correspondent j proportion of non-fatal damage to child life, -are, m the words of Herbert Spencer, the result of unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy, joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsels of grandmothers." The above statement, made by Dr Charles Porter, medical officer for health m Shropshire, is printed m a February number of Public Health, and stands quoted approvingly by Mrs Florence Greenwood, sanitary inspector m Sheffield, who writes a very able . paper on "Infantile Mortality" for the) Englishwoman's Review. The waste of 1 life m Midland towns, she agrees, is some-, thing appalling to contemplate. In Sheffield the medical officer has reported that out of 2422 infants under_ twelve months who died during the year* probably 1000 ] healthy children lost their lives through ignorance or carelessness on the part of their caretakers. In Preßton, which, with Burnley, bears the unenviable reputation of having the highest infantile death j rate m England, there is the same agreement by experts that the chief causes of fatality are the habits of the operative class, ignorance of laws of health, and persistence m time-honored methods of feeding, etc., regardless of results. Grandmother's counsel prescribes for infants a diet of rusks, bread and water, or sago, varied by a bottle of water-gruel or tea; and the working mother faithfully observes such counsel, though it may end, as is too often seen, m the loss of more than half h«r family before they outgrow their troubled infancy. Again, the infant's female relations show equal recklessness as to matters of heat and cold. Some manufacturing towns are now trying to meet the difficulty y giving individual instruction on such points. The Chesterfield Infant Life Protection Society sends lady sanitary inspectors from house to house where a birth or death of an infant occurs to impress on the inmates some elementary rule of health. But there is general consent that the only true remedy lies m early education, and the best hope for the future is m the influence of the school?. Girls must learu, as part of their school training, the care of infants and the direction of household hygiene, since m this instance there is decidedly an imperative need that they should be able to "teach their grandmothers."