THE CHANNEL AND SOME SHOALS IN MUNICIPAL AND STATE CHILD HYGIENE ADMINISTRATION

Abstract

IT is with considerable hesitation that the writer undertakes to attack so broad a problem within the compass of a short paper. It should go without saying that only the barest essentials can be touched upon. For our purposes, we shall confine ourselves to child hygiene, that is to .say, the application of the laws of health to the needs of the child. The term, child welfare, which is frequently employed more or less synonymously with child hygiene, covers a broader field and brings in factors which, though indirectly, are not directly, connected with child hygiene. The subject of child hygiene more properly includes prenatal hygiene, obstetrics (in part), infant hygiene, the hygiene of the child of pre-school age, school hygiene, and lastly, the hygiene of the child in industry. Furthermore, we may perhaps safely say that the greater portion of mental hygiene lies within the field of child hygiene. A distinction has been drawn in the title of the paper between state and municipal administration of the child hygiene problem. This distinction is in part real and in part artificial. From the standpoint of law, the municipality derives its powers and responsibilities from the state. In practice, however, there must often be a fairly sharp line of demarcation between the kind of administration which is proper to a municipality and that of which it is most fitting for the state to assume control. It must never be forgotten that the activities involved in child hygiene from the point of view of municipality and state, primarily represent an attempt to do something for the health of the child which cannot readily be done by the