15 JULY 1960, Page 17

CLINICAL ATTITUDES

SIR..I have alWays enjoyed Mrs. Furlong's articles, finding them thankfully free of the cosiness or con- descension which marks so much writing —and speaking—for women. But in 'Clinical Attitudes' I !poked in vain for her usual gaiety and sense. Instead, was written with the kind of faint praise which damns the subject and suggests a complacent mood of ,elf-praise in the author : worse, it smacked of the second-hand ('a friend of mine said . . ') and I 1.,° 1st regretfully assume that. in this instance, she knows tittle of what she's writing.

Now I do—as I have gone regularly to our local clinic with my two daughters during the last four Years. So I feel I must rush to its defence and not merely fume- to my husband. Ours is a thriving concern, full of children, asleep 'ar Yelling, gurgling or fighting, in arms, playpens and under foot--and a fascinating diversity of mothers! So, the brief queues are' never boring. It is efficiently, and yet informally, organised and madly friendly; all mothers consider other mothers fair game for maternal anecdotes and so conversation

never languishes. Of course, a lot of this depends on th , Health Visitors themselves. In our clinic they

Know all our names (none of that 'good afternoon, nrIther. sort of lark which Mrs Furlong seems to expect) and have an incredible memory for our children's names and ages and health—and a real Concern for them. No problem is too minor nor too complicated. (A very young mother ahead of me In the queue a month ago had a non-stop-crier by way of offspring and was limp with tiredness and ditillusionment. Miss X gave her sympathy, an hour- b 'hour routine to follow and the promise of a visit the next day. This was typical.) Two other points can be countered. As a graduate, I recognise the value of a trained person and am not t°0 proud to lean a little on their experience. That they are spinsters is hardly. relevant. No one who remembers the desperate moments of inadequacy that beset a new mother, weeping with her yelling baby, Can believe that giving birth to a baby automatically endows one with all maternal knowledge. Again, to argue that the disparity of advice sometimes ,given disproves the value of all advice is patently false: °nC learns to modify all advice and to be most wary of those who are absolute.—Yours faithfully,

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