Report of the Health Officer, Corporation of Madras Health Department.

  • Madras (India). Health Department.
Date:
[1920]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Health Officer, Corporation of Madras Health Department. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/160 (page 4)
    4- dation, cn pain of expulsion, in case of infraction of the rules and regulations made for the purpose of procuring cleanliness sobriety and general propriety of conduct of the inmates of the dwellings. It is therefore imperative that the Corporation, with the necessary aid of the Government, should extend model dwelling’s on a greater scale and should launch upon a definite City Improvement Scheme. This should be largely supplemented by the creation of private model dwellings, consistent with economy and sanitation. Such private model dwellings can be run even as a busi¬ ness concern, the owner or owners thereof being content with a reasonable rate of interest on the money invested. With the increasing appreciation, of such dwellings by those persons for whom they are intended, the owners of such dwellings n ay ultimately find them a paying concern. Now coming to infantile mortality, the death-rate was 279*3 as against 329*0 in 1919, thereby showing a reduction in the infantile death*rate. Yet. the rate is admittedly high, when compared to that of European cities and efforts are being put forth to markedly reduce it. Nothing but vigilant attention to child hygiene will bring about improvement in the health and condition of infants. The Corporation has done well in having laid out a child hygiene programme or child welfare scheme to reduce the infantile mortality rate. And in places where the activity of the i chen e is in full force, there has been a comparatively marked re¬ duction in infantile death-rates. Infant and child mortality cannot be reduced to any appreciable extent by measures directed solely to the mother and child. For instance, of what avail is the advice to the mother in the care of her baby, if the father is a syphilitic, if the baby’s aunt or Aya who fondles the child has tuberculosis, or if the mother lives in a place or community where infectious diseases prevail unnoticed? Of what avail is advice for child feeding, if there is no provision for clean milk, and where sanitary regulations for the protection of food and drinking water are not fully enforced ? Health is therefore largely a community matter, and it is the community standards which establish the mortality rate and determine largely whether the individuals shall be well or whether they shall sicken and die. The department of public health should therefore be assisted by a Veterinary and Venereal Department. Besides, it should be well organised and efficiently worked, with the help of a-system of co-operative associations, societies or other agencies which have for their special object the benefit of the child and the mother. In Madras, within a few years, several such excellent associations and magnificent institutions have sprung up. The number and the kind of these institutions and the extent of the scheme laid out and worked by them are* incorporated m the report in accordance with G.O. No. 653, P. H. Mis., dated 10th June 1921. Thanks