On baby-farming and the registration of nurses / by J. Brendon Curgenven.

  • Curgenven, J. Brendon (John Brendon), 1831-1903.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On baby-farming and the registration of nurses / by J. Brendon Curgenven. 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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    as if it was still-born or had died in the birth.” These women have no special qualification for their occupation as midwives. They have had no instruction, and it not unfrequently occurs that the life of the mother is sacrificed ; as I have had the misfortune to witness, having been called to the assistance of a midwife barely in time to see the poor lying-in woman expire. Ignorant and unscrupulous, such are the women in whose hands hundreds of those who are about to become mothers place their own lives and the lives of their infants. The question of education and registration of midwives is one which I will not enter on here, but I hope to bring that for- ward at another time. There are baby-farmers who receive women into their houses, to be attended by a medical man during their lying-in. They merely undertake the duties of nursing the mother and taking charge of the baby afterwards. Others advertise for “ Nurse children ; ” of these some are indigdnt but respectable persons, who wish to add a little to their small earnings and who try to do their best by their nurselings. Some are drunken women, who spend the money they get from the parent of the child at the gin-palace, and the little one is soon starved out of existence, to be replaced by another. Again others, to get as much as they can by their business, take several children ; deaths rapidly occur amongst them from want of attention and cleanliness; and others advertise for children to adopt, requiring a premium of from 51. to 50/. The following are characteristic advertisements of this sort. “ ADOPTION (Entirely).—Eespectable Couple wish for an in- fant as own; age not particular; 11. premium is all required. Address by letter only, A. Z., Clerkemvell JS'ew.s Branch Office, 214, Shoreditch, N.E.” “ ADOPTION.—A Couple, having no children, wish to adopt a male infant ; 40/. premium required. Apply F. F., 7, Tonbridge Street, Euston Road ; top bell.” The “ top bell ” indicates that the advertiser occupies the top fioor or attics in the house. The writer in the British Medical Journal paid a visit to a top floor,” in the occupation of a baby-farmer, and he there found seven children, varying in age from nine years down to a few weeks; some were “ taken to nurse ” and others “ adopted.” The terms of this woman were 5s. a week for nurse children, and 10/. or 15/. for