The increase during the war period has been very great; and this can be attributed to the desire to do everything practicable for mothers and children, especially those belonging to soldiers and sailors who were risking their lives for the country; and to the increased realisation of the importance of preserving and improving our chief national asset which consists in a healthy population. During this period there was a great increase in the industrial employment of women, including married women, in factories including munition and other works. This increase it is believed amounted to a million and a half workers. Notwithstanding the many adverse influences, to which must be added great overcrowding in many industrial areas, especially those in which new industries were hurriedly started, and the increasing cost of food and especially of milk with a scarcity of supply, it has been seen that infant mortality remained low and on the whole declined during the whole period of the war. To what circumstances can this be ascribed? It is unnecessary to assume that this result was entirely due to the active measures favorable to maternity and child welfare which were taken as an unexampled scale, though these measures can claim an important share in the result. A number of contributory factors were at work: 1. In none of the years in question did the summer weather favor an excess of diarrhœal mortality. With this factor, however, eliminated the infant mortality each year was lower than in previous years. 2. Although so many husbands were away from home, in a large proportion of cases the wife, in virtue of her separation allowance, was financially in a more favorable position than when she was dependent on her husband’s wages or such portion of it as he allowed her for the support of the household. 3. In addition, every soldier became an insured person, and his wife was therefore entitled to the Maternity Benefit of 30 shillings on the birth of a child, and an additional 30 shillings if she was herself an employed person. 4. There can be no reasonable doubt that the restrictions on the consumption of alcoholic drinks and the limitation of hours for opening public houses were a factor in improving domestic welfare. But attaching full value to these and other similar factors which undoubtedly were at work, chief place must, I think, be given to the awakening of the public conscience on the subject, and to the concentration on the mother and her child which had been urged in season and which now became a fact. An indication of the public mind is given by the advice issued by the Local Government Board in August, 1918, which is quoted on page 248. FOOTNOTES: [18] Extracted from addresses given at Conferences held by the Children’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, Washington. INDEX Abbott, J., 2 Abbott, S. W., 2 Alcoholic drinks, 123, 149, 187 Anaesthetics, 77 Ante-natal work, 261