was that the illness of babies was due to the ignorance of mothers. Well, some of it is. And that has proven a very good place to begin. For every one else, from a plumber to a professor, there has always been training. Only a mother was supposed to find out how by herself. Now she no longer has to. The registration of Jimmie's birth itself brought the Health Visitor, detailed from the public health department of the borough, for her first municipal call on his mother. She found Mrs. Smith up and trying to make gruel for herself. After serious expostulation, the maternity patient was induced to return to bed, where she belonged. Gruel, the white-faced woman who sank back on the pillow insisted, was easy. Why, probably she should not have minded it at all. Only that day before yesterday she had gotten up to do a bit of wash and had fainted at the tub. She hadn't seemed to be just right since. Neither had the baby.
The visitor leaned across the bed and removed a "pacifier" from the baby's mouth. "But he has to have it," said the mother, "he cries so much. All my children had it." Looking round at them, the visitor saw that it was true. Each exhibited some form of the facial malformation that substantiated the statement. And one was deaf from the adenoid growth. And one was not quite bright. This was, of course, no time for a medical lecture beyond Mrs. Smith's comprehension. But the effort was made to impress her with the simple statement of fact that a pacifier really was harmful for a
