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woman's work in sanitary reform. 223
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
" I Conclude That All Our Endowments For...
is an object specially demanding attention . " It has been shown in the sanitary report" says Mr . Chadwick _, " that in the same districts
, where one fourth of the children of the gentry have died , more than one half of the children of the poor have died ; and this excess of
death among the poorer classes was traceable to preventable causes . " Of thesematernal ignorance and mismanagement are , as has
, been before stated , among * the most fatal . Few but those who have been much among the poor , know how fearfully mismanaged their
little ones are—how the infant shares his mother's dram and all her _foodfrom red herring to cucumber— -how he takes medicine
, sufficient homceopathieally to treat the whole community—and how finally , an incautiously large dose of laudanum , wraps him in the
sleep that knows no waking . * Ignorance of the laws of health is not only one of the greatest
causes of the low physical condition of the children in poor families , but also of that of the adult members . Sanitary knowledge is one
of the greatest wants of our poor population , and it is one which educated women may do very much to supply .
Those of us who are district visitors and tract distributors , have excellent opportunities for imparting this knowledge . We should
be all the more successful even in the directly spiritual part of our work , if we showed our poor friends how to remove those sore
physical evils which cramp and fetter mind and soul , and so often prevent all thought or care for moral and spiritual elevation . We
have the highest possible precedent for constantly combining ministrations to the body with those to the soul . If Christians were .
faithful imitators of their Great Exemplar , there would be no need to form combinations for the special purpose of sanitary reform ;
* Many painful instances of the results of maternal ignorance might be of cited infan . t The mor following tality in fif suggestive ty cases personall cases are y taken investi from gated a report y Mrs . of W the . Baines causes .
pied " Ca in se a 3 convulsive . Boy , aged fit . ght Coroner months ' s . the " ni Fed ght ux before 3 on tea it and died muffin . Always _heaitil ate y htand had also breast milk
inquest teething " Case . " 48 A . Child lleged caus d five e of months death . , ear " These ily , two cases happened to . " - ¦ age
months feeding Coroner " Case . . ' ' Coroner " inquest 49 . Chil ' s : , inque verdict d , aged st : , verdict 'O ver ven - , foo w of gether ere d a , a wet nd in were the nurse a same hear foun , and ty house d dead supper her . at The nursling of 4 a Ibread child . m . " ,
4 i Died through over-feeding . " J The " Total report of cases is thus traceable summed to up over " ¦ : — -feeding and injudicious ? feeding . 68 34 . Or cent . •• . . • •
per The Mortality . of Infants , " by Dr . C . H . F . Routh , pp . 42-5-0 . rem With arks , regard " We have to the three use drugg of laudanum ists in one and dist other rict of _oxjiates Manches , Dr ter . , Plavfair sell l
weekly respecti ; ve two ly Rye of them and testif a half ying , tliree that and almost a half all , and the families one , in all of the ten poor galons in Clitheroe that distric and t habituall other towns y drug similar their evidence children was with i ven piates . . " In IiochcUle , g
, ,
Woman's Work In Sanitary Reform. 223
woman s work in sanitary reform . 223
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), June 1, 1859, page 223, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01061859/page/7/
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