Death in Birth The appointment of a committee on midwifery,
with the Earl of Athlone as chairman; is very opportune in view of the disturbing persistence of high maternal mortality: For every thousand children born in Britain, approxi- mately four mothers lose their lives ; and this proportion has remained practically constant over a long period of years. Numerous investigations into the problem have been made, but they have left us little wiser than we were as to causes and consequently as to remedial measures. It obviously is not essentially a question of sanitary environment, for the maternal-mortality rates in such slum boroughs of London as Stepney, Southwark, Bethnal Green and Shoreditch have always been strikingly below those of Hampstead, Westminster and Stoke Newington. Moreover, the increasing proportion of women nowadays Confined in hospitals; where at least an approximation to aseptic conditions are observed, has done little or nothing to lower the general maternal death rate. The one obviouS factor that the critical observer may suspeet is the specifically technical skill- of the attendants. Are we sure that our medical practitioners, in these days of theoretic science, are better trained in the realities of their craft than were their more empirically educated pre- decessors ?
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