At an important meeting in London relative to marriage, motherhood, and children, Dr. Omand Routh expressed the view that motherhood was threatened in these days of "new ethics' and malthusianism" by two dangers. One of these was the idea that motherhood apart from marriage was not immoral, and the other that marriage might be arranged with intentional avoidance of motherhood. Both these views ought to be combated by the women of England. Marriage was the only state in which sex relationship should occur; and he did not believe that artificial avoidance of conception could—be habitually carried out, apart from continence, without the probability of serious disturbance of health in both parents. The death rate of illegitimate infants and their mothers was double that of those in wedlock, and the provision of hostels where mother and child could be together during and after lactation was most desirable. The mortality and morbidity of mother and child associated with maternity could be almost entirely prevented by the efficient medical superv*..1on of expectant mothers and by skilled nursing during the lying in period.
He urged the importance of the endowment of motherhood among the middle classes. Such a sche-.e for all classes would cost £240,000,- 006 a year in Great Britain and Trela'.d—an impossible figure, he said, but modification of such a scheme to poor widowed mothers, or, to women whose husbands were mentally or physically incapacitated or where the income of parents fell below £200, would only amount to £40,000,000 yearly. Of 61,715 infant deaths recorded in England and Wales for 1919 many might have been saved by improved conditions and knowledge of the problems surrounding motherhood.
Dr. Scharlieb, referring to the neglect of the duty of parents yo enlighten their children, said that it was a hopeful sign that young women were now more or less taking the matter into their own hands. She thought we should gradually get an interchange of certificate of health between brides and bridegrooms.
Dr. Schofield denounced the right to motherhood claimed to-day as 1 retrograde step from the human to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.