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200
Hal l's words , in fact, pinpointed the remarkab le di ference in
attitude bet\oleen the two doctors :
Bedford, more conservative, in medical
charge of the Orphan Schools for sixteen years , was personally aggri eved
at Hall's criticisms, seeing no reason for anxiety at the death rate ,
\'lhi ch he considered the normal outcome of nuisance epidemi cs , nor any need
to improve the children's diet and conditions ;
in contrast, Hal l, the
pogressive student of all new ideas in science and medicin, was deeply
concerned at what he-knew was a major problem, as he sought the basic
causes of death and the means of prevention .
the children 's food.
He fe lt the answer was in
Basi.ng his calculations on the amount of food
necessary to keep the body of a full grown man in condition, as determined
by the work of Professor Johnson , an Agricultural chemist ;
on the
universally accepted idea in the colony that more food was required in
Tasmania to support a healthy life owing to the climate;
and on the fact
that Tasmanian flours , usually grown on unmanured soils , had been proved
only half as nourishing as European flours , he argued that , all other
articles of the diet scale remainng the same, one pound of flesh meat
per day, or its equiva lent in other nitrogenous aliments , should be the
allowance for every chi ld above six years old
to prevent them wasting away so numerously from marasmus
and kindred diseases , and to give them more stamina, so
as to enab le them to withstand epidemic visitations on
equal terms with the chi ldren in the colony at large.
In characteristic style, he condemned the ease with which the Matron had
purloined the chi ldren 's food, yet es caped punishment .
reply to Bedford with a challenge :
He concluded his
I cannot possibly think the respons ib le authorities of
the Queen 's Orphan School , properly aware of their trusts ,
or faithful in the dis charge of them, while the mortality
continues to be - even in Dr Bedford's own showing -
upwards of three per cent , or six times greater than that
of ch ildren of the same age, at the same time , during the
same epidemics , in the same salubrious country districts
and in the great majority, of the same class. When they
are even brought to a par in point of mortality, I shall
not be able conscientious ly to admit that any great merit
will be due .
In the second half of the article Hall compared the numb er of
deaths from various diseases in Hobarton with those recorded in London .
In croup , diarrhoea, dysentery, dropsy, cancer , hydrocephalus aphalites ,
apop lexy, paralysis, delirium tremens , convu lsions , pneumonia, diseases
of the stomach , liver , and other organs of digestion, in deaths from