Address on a National League for Physical Education and Improvement : delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Manchester Children's Hospital, February 24th, 1905 / by Sir Lauder Brunton.
- Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
- Date:
- [1905]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Address on a National League for Physical Education and Improvement : delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Manchester Children's Hospital, February 24th, 1905 / by Sir Lauder Brunton. 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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![n Care of Bahics—Milk BiippliJ. l»e to lier cliilil if she were able to suckle it, and if this be impossible slie might at least be taught how not to poison it by improper food. In some eases, perhaps in many cases in ]\ianchester, the necessity for earning food may be sncli as to make the mother work until the very last moment. But if it were to become a ijractice tliat every girl about to become a mother should, when applying for assistance during lier confinement, have not only her name and address but her circumstances inquired into, the most necessitous cases might be reported, and, perhaps, some provision might be made to ensure food and core for at least a couple of w’eeks before and after confinement. I say a couple of weeks, not that I mean such a limitation is desirable, but this I think should be the minimum. At the birth of the baby the mother should be instructed how to feed tlie child, and although this should l>e done beforehand, as I liave said, by printed leaflet, yet tlie instruction should now be given in a very different way by actual demonstration. The nurse wdio is in attendance on the mother and child for the first short time after confinement should give this instruction, and the duty of visiting the mother and seeing that everything w’as carried out rightly might be undertaken by lady visitors. Each branch of the League would get a list of confinements about to come off, and the ladies of that particular branch could attend to the mothers in their district. I think it almost certain that infant mortality must have lieen greatly increased by the introduction of feeding bottles with long tubes, because it is almost impossible to keep tubes clean, and each time that fresh milk is put into them it is infected by bacteria from a dirty tube, and decomposition thus initiated before ever it reaches the baby’s stomach. But, even if bottles be kept perfectly clean and aseptic, there is still the difticulty of obtaining good milk. I have already spoken of the dangers of contamination of milk by water containing typhoid genus and the impairment of the nutritive qualities of milk by boiling. In order that milk may be supplied in a state of purity in large towns it has been proposed that municipalities should imdertake this vvorlc and establish milk depots throughout all the large cities and towns, but this woidd](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22430544_0011.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
