Infant mortality : its causes and remedies.

Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Infant mortality : its causes and remedies. 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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    tends to add to the already oppressive burden which the rate- payers have to bear, and to weaken in the community that sense of responsibility to conscience and to God in which virtue, national as well as personal, has its root. On referring to the reply of the Infant Life Protection Society to a memorial of the National Society for Woman's Suffrage objecting to the proposed measure, we find it stated that there is to be only one Registrar at the central office in London, and that all other functions created by the Act are to be entrusted to the present parish medical officers. But whether exercised by old officials or new, fresh duties, we suppose, entail fresh pay. Now, we cannot believe that, even in the case of deserted child- ren, the license fees demanded from the nurses, and which, we are of opinion, they will often be unable to pay, can possibly cover all the expenses attendant on the proposed system, with the excep- tion of the salary assigned to the Head Registrar in London ; and if to them were added all legitimate children boarded out by the day, the number of inspectors, and, consequently, the cost of inspection, would be enormously increased.^ We would have it clearly understood that we have no desire to win over the ratepayers to our views by pandering to their often selfish and short-sighted dislike to any additional expenditure of public money. Every object that can be shown to be of imperative necessity, and incapable of due attainment by private effort, we are willing to see supported by the public at large, and that chiefly on economical grounds, because we know that for every pound required, but not spent, in preventing evils, the community, sooner or later, will have to give two, for their punishment or their cure. But believing, as we do, that the enforced inspection of children possessing natural guardians, is unnecessary and unwise, we feel ourselves authorised to take objection to the expense which such inspection would entail, and to bring this side of the question prominently before the minds of those with whom we know it will have weight; though we ourselves lay more stress on the other consideration. We are convinced that the whole community The system, once fully established, we have a strong suspicion based upon the statements of medical men themselves, that the inspectors would soon find the five shillings fee an inadequate remuneration for their time and trouble, and strike for higher pay.