[Report 1897] / Medical Officer of Health, Bootle County Borough.

  • Bootle (Lancashire, England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1897] / Medical Officer of Health, Bootle County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    around dwellings, but it can actually be taken and forced into the du'ellimjs, tlii'ough ** (jroiind air” entering the basements of houses. It is well-known that when a house is unprovided with an impermeable basement, the aspirating power of the warm air of the house can draw up air out of the ground. It follows then that when this ground air is fouled, either from defective drains or from more or less polluted soils, it may contaminate the house and every- thing in it, including food. I believe Dr. Ballard and lately Sir R. Thorne Thorne, Medical Officer of Health of the Local Government Board, have insisted on the necessity of keeping ground air out of houses. How important it must therefore be that an impermeable basement to every house or cottage, through the laying of a bed of cement, should be insisted on. With regard to the second cause, viz. ; artificial feedinij of infants, careful investigation has shown that the mortality of children reared on breast-milk is small, but w'hen artificial food is employed, the mortality at once begins to rise. According to Dr. Hope, Medical Officer of Health for Liverpool, “ the deaths amongst children under 3 months of age, either w'holly or partially fed on artificial foods, are fifteen times as great as they are amongst an equal number of infanis fed upon breast milk. Between the ages of 3 and G months, for every infant getting breast-milk as part of its diet, who dies fi om diarrhoea, there are six who die amongst an equal number getting no breast-milk.” These statements I believe to be absolutely correct, and I have no doubt are as equally applicable to Bootle as to Liverpool. As artificial foods, therefore, given to infants are often totally unsuited for them, and the milk obtained by the poor is not always of proper nourishing quality, and is often soured by uncleanly feeding bottles, how' necessary it is that judicious advice in educating the poor in these important matters should be given by competent and trained persons. The Sanitary Inspectors, it is true, can often, when the disease is rife, give useful advice, which might often be the means of saving life, but what can one or two Sanitary Inspectors, unaided, do to mitigate the evils of artificial fieding and unwholesome surroundings, w'ben they have all their other important duties to perform ? In this direction. Lady Sauitary Inspectors, who have been properly trained in nursing, might be most useful, but surely when a disease so fatal in 3 or 4 mnrths of the year, has to be combated, some effort should be made to start a proper organisation of trained district irurses Ly charitable and philairthropic persons in this Borough. M ith regard to the tbii'd cause, viz. ; the najlcet of proper snnitanj proviaiuns, I think I need hardly say much on this cause, as I believe the Sanitary Authority of this Borough is doing all that can be done, with respect to the