Baby Clinic in Calcutta

SOME time ago Miss Webb, the Lady Superintendent of the Dufferin Hospital for Women, Calcutta, made arrangements to start a Baby Clinic as an experiment and invited women with new-born babies, to go to the clinic once a week to obtain expert advice about the treatment of children and also a free supply of good pure milk with a reward of 4 annas to poor women to compensate for the loss of time and labour it involved. Obviously the scheme failed as the women did not take advantage of this offer and the Health Officer of Calcutta has made a reference to this failure in explaining the rate of high infant mortality in the city. "When women who have personally experienced the advantages of hospital treatment cannot be induced to bring their babies to a clinic, there is obviously very little hope of ever inducing women who have never seen the inside of a hospital to bring their babies."