Why little children die : a lecture / by H.H. Vernon.

  • Vernon, Henry Hannotte, 1831-1900.
Date:
[1878?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Why little children die : a lecture / by H.H. Vernon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    WHY LITTLE CHILDREN DIE. A LECTURE BY H. H. VERNON, M.D., Medical Officer of Health, Southport. c Of all the various questions which interest a professional sanitarian there is perhaps not one in which he has more right to expect the interest, the help, and the sympathy of the public than in this question, which is constantly forcing itself on his attention, Why do so many little children die ? In his search for the causes of the terrible destruction of infant life, which is one of the most pressing questions of the day, he may not perhaps call for more than sympathy, but when he comes to devising remedies adequate to the removal of these causes, he requires not only sympathy but active and ready help. Now the object of this evening's address is to fix your attention on certain facts which are shocking, to arouse your interest, to enlist your sympathies, and to induce you to help earnestly and persistently in doing something to remove the stigma which rests upon so many city populations of, I will not say actively killing, but, allowing, so many of the recruits who join the army of humanity to die prematurely, painfully, unnecessarily, and discreditably. I know of no people, and I have lived all over England pretty nearly, who are more instinct with home affections than the Lancashire people, and especially the Manchester people. The vernacular language of the county is rich in familiar terms, which demonstrate plainly the hold which domestic ideas have upon the mass of the people. Whether it is a tender lyric, descriptive of fireside pleasures, or some quaint turn of speech which reveals the strong and abiding sense of a mutual property in each other, which characterises the Lancashire family, it is all the same. The general habit, the common speech, and the popular poetry,