Economic and financial section > Problem of nutrition

A SURVEY OF THE MEASURES TAKEN IN CERTAIN
COUNTRIES BY GOVERNMENTS, PUBLIC AUTHORITIES
AND NATIONAL ORGANISATIONS TO BRING ABOUT AN
IMPROVEMENT IN THE NUTRITION IN VARIOUS
SECTIONS OF THE POPULATION.
CHAPTER I.
MEASURES TAKEN ON BEHALF OF MOTHERS AND INFANTS.
All civilised nations regard social hygiene as founded upon the welfare
of mothers and children, and that, in turn, as based on rational feeding.
The principle is universally recognised ; the means of putting it into
effect (clinics, milk dispensaries, etc.) vary from country to country.
Union of South Africa.
(a) The larger local authorities in the Union of South Africa
(Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, etc.) have for many years been
conducting maternity and child welfare clinics for necessitous persons.
At these, instruction is given by health visitors and medical officers in
food values and feeding methods ; at most of them, food is issued in the
form of fresh and dried milk, cod-liver oil and malt and, in some instances,
meals are provided free to nursing mothers.
(b) In many of the smaller towns where local authorities are not
strong enough financially to conduct welfare clinics, national women’s
organisations run maternity and child welfare centres on similar lines
to those of the larger local authorities. Such organisations are the
National Council of Women (which operates throughout the whole
Union), Afrikaanse Christelike Vroue Vereniging (Cape Province),
Suid-Afrikaanse Vroue Federasie (Transvaal), Oranje Vroue Vereniging
(Orange Free State) and the Natalse Christelike Vroue Vereniging (Natal).
Argentine Republic.
In June 1935, the Municipal Institute of Nutrition set up a social
service for supervising and protecting healthy individuals (see Chapter
VII). This service has a canteen which supplies food to pregnant
women and nursing mothers whose means are too slender to provide
them with an adequate diet. This is not regarded as charity but as
social assistance. Assistance may be either partial or extend to the whole
family, food being supplied to one or more of the other members of
the family, as may be necessary to provide them with a rational diet