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TEACHING MOTHERCRAFT
1154 results confirmed the suggestion that uracil (or substance from which it is formed) is required for the synthesis of nucleoproteins in the rapidly growing plant embryo, and that this process can only be blocked by substances of very closely related structure. In animals, thiouracil does not prevent the rapid growth of tissues ; it has only a highly specific action on the thyroid gland. It seems, therefore, that the mechanism by which pyrimidines are built into nucleoproteins is different in the plant and the animal. It is. however, worth recalling the occasional depression of the whitecell count by 2-thiouracil in patients with hyperthyroidism who are being treated with this drug. 2-thiouracil reduces the white-cell count more often than its methyl and propyl derivatives or other related drugs, such as l-methyl-2-mercaptoimidazole. There is here a hint that the effect of thiouracil on the bone-marrow of susceptible people may be related to its action on plant seeds. If there is anything in this uracil should prove an effective antidote. suggestion, a Curiously enough, parasite of the tobacco plant -the mosaic virus-is affected by thiouracil in the same way as the germinating seed. Working in the same institution as Newmark, Commoner and Mercer4 have shown that the growth of this virus is inhibited by low concentrations of thiouracil, and that the inhibition is reversed by uracil. This observation recalls the earlier work of Strandskov and Wyss,5 and of Wolff and Karlin,6 who found a similar inhibition and reversal in Bacterium coli and Lactobacillus casei. Evidently a wide variety of plants require uracil, at least in the phase of rapid growth. There is a theoretical possibility that the relative insusceptibility of the animal to thiouracil could be turned to its advantage in its competition with the plant-like These a
micro-organisms.
Unfortunately
enemies-the tubercle bacillus-is by thiouracil.7
one
of
the
only slightly
major affected
Though practical developments are unlikely, it seems probable that observations on the thiouracil-uracil relationship will advance our knowledge of nucleoprotein metabolism in the plant, if not the animal, cell. TEACHING MOTHERCRAFT THOSE who have studied the subject say that the children in problem families are often dirty, neglected, badly fed and housed, and accustomed to squalor ; but that they are seldom kept short of that primary necessity, affection. Mothers, in short, can be incompetent providers, feckless homemakers, and unreliable moral guides, without being bad mothers in their children’s eyes ; and when they are brought into court for neglecting those children, they are bewildered at being punished for cruelty, when they have simply been doing their best. It has long been clear that to send an incompetent mother to prison will not help her to become competent ; it merely robs her children for a time of her comfortable presence. The Society of Friends intend to open a home to train such mothers in their job, and there is every hope that this-the Elizabeth Fry Home, at Spofforth, near Harrogate-will be ready by the summer. The Salvation Army have, for three years, been running the Mayflower home in Plymouth, which receives mothers who have been found guilty of neglect and put on probation. In Birmingham the city council have started a training course, in the women’s prison, for women sentenced for neglecting their children. During the day the women get practical training in housewifery and mothercraft, and in the evening they attend talks given by instructors from the health, education, and In Holloway, child-welfare departments of the city. and in the Manchester prisons, the Prison Commissioners 4. 5. 6. 7.
Commoner, B., Mercer, F. Nature, Lond. 1951, 168, 113. Strandskov, F. B., Wyss, O. J. Bact. 1945, 50, 237. Wolff, R., Karlin, R. C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, 1948, 142, 87. Frisk, A. R. Acta med. scand. 1946, 125, 487.
classes in home management. Mothers with their children may also be received in some homes on a medical recommendation. The Lancashire Community Council, a voluntary body, are making a success of such a home-Brentwood, at Marple, in Cheshire ; and this takes women convicted of neglect, as well as those recommended by doctors or social workers. An article in the Manchester Guardian of May 2 gives points from the case-histories of five of the ten women who were staying at Brentwood with their families during April.
provide
A girl of 20, expecting her fourth child, lived with her husband and three children in a single room without running To save money for a flat she paid a woman to sit water. in with her children in the evenings, while she went out to work as a waitress. The sitter-in spent the money on going out to the pictures, and the mother was taken into court for neglecting her children. Another girl of 21, with two children and a husband given to selling-up the furniture, was living in two rat-ridden cellar rooms. A woman of 35 was too weak after a major operation to look after her nine children. A woman of 27, looking 16, had had five children since she left her orphanage and married a sailor. A woman of 40, looking 60, wife of a man who beat her, was nursing her seventh child-a 2-year-old-at the breast, in the hope that this would protect her from a further pregnancy. All these women were living in circumstances which
demanded qualities of character and outlook quite beyond their range. They loved their children, they were doing their best ; but the odds were too heavy against them, and the ordinary remedy of society would have been to send them to prison. At Brentwood, a roomy, early 19th-century house, with a good view, standing in its own garden, they get some rest, learn some principles, and look after their
own
children.
Brentwood can take some thirty children under 7 as well as the ten mothers ; and the average length of stay is about 6 weeks. The mothers do the laundry work and mending for themselves and their children and help the staff of eight with the housework They look after their children, but eat apart from them, and have the opportunity, unknown in most circles today, of consigning them to nursery attendants (of whom there are four) for parts of the day. All the time they are being taught, unobtrusively, the elements of their craftby example and suggestion rather than direction. They learn, for instance, that a floor can be scrubbed better if it is brushed first; and if this seems an elementary fact, it gives a measure of their lack of training and initiative. According to the Manchester Guardian report, the staff are good at being omnipresent without being officious : " Where suggestion fails they harry mildly ; when it succeeds they praise."
No aftercare service has so far been possible, but the staff sometimes hear, through friends of residents, of homes better kept as a result of a visit to Brentwood a year or two before. This home developed out of a holiday home which, between the wars,’took in the families of unemployed men ; during the war years it received families from the evacuated areas. It is now one of the pioneers in a new and valuable kind of social welfare, and pressure on the places available is such that cases wait nine months for admission. Yet applications to homes of this kind are only made by those magistrates or probation officers who have heard of their existence. Quite clearly we need many more such homes. At Brentwood the running costs last year were 4580. A charge of E4 weekly for a mother and E2 for each child is paid by the public-health authority or voluntary society which sends them. Plans to extend the nursery space, which at present is rather cramped, and to make room for another five mothers would cost some JE15,000—a large sum to raise. Moreover, an efficient follow-up and aftercare service is needed if the work put in at Brentwood is to have full value, An experiment which has already proved its worth, and which is used by most parts of the country, certainly deserves support. The Lancashire Community Council need some far-sighted and w-ealthy, friends. -
micro-organisms.
Unfortunately
enemies-the tubercle bacillus-is by thiouracil.7
one
of
the
only slightly
major affected
Though practical developments are unlikely, it seems probable that observations on the thiouracil-uracil relationship will advance our knowledge of nucleoprotein metabolism in the plant, if not the animal, cell. TEACHING MOTHERCRAFT THOSE who have studied the subject say that the children in problem families are often dirty, neglected, badly fed and housed, and accustomed to squalor ; but that they are seldom kept short of that primary necessity, affection. Mothers, in short, can be incompetent providers, feckless homemakers, and unreliable moral guides, without being bad mothers in their children’s eyes ; and when they are brought into court for neglecting those children, they are bewildered at being punished for cruelty, when they have simply been doing their best. It has long been clear that to send an incompetent mother to prison will not help her to become competent ; it merely robs her children for a time of her comfortable presence. The Society of Friends intend to open a home to train such mothers in their job, and there is every hope that this-the Elizabeth Fry Home, at Spofforth, near Harrogate-will be ready by the summer. The Salvation Army have, for three years, been running the Mayflower home in Plymouth, which receives mothers who have been found guilty of neglect and put on probation. In Birmingham the city council have started a training course, in the women’s prison, for women sentenced for neglecting their children. During the day the women get practical training in housewifery and mothercraft, and in the evening they attend talks given by instructors from the health, education, and In Holloway, child-welfare departments of the city. and in the Manchester prisons, the Prison Commissioners 4. 5. 6. 7.
Commoner, B., Mercer, F. Nature, Lond. 1951, 168, 113. Strandskov, F. B., Wyss, O. J. Bact. 1945, 50, 237. Wolff, R., Karlin, R. C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, 1948, 142, 87. Frisk, A. R. Acta med. scand. 1946, 125, 487.
classes in home management. Mothers with their children may also be received in some homes on a medical recommendation. The Lancashire Community Council, a voluntary body, are making a success of such a home-Brentwood, at Marple, in Cheshire ; and this takes women convicted of neglect, as well as those recommended by doctors or social workers. An article in the Manchester Guardian of May 2 gives points from the case-histories of five of the ten women who were staying at Brentwood with their families during April.
provide
A girl of 20, expecting her fourth child, lived with her husband and three children in a single room without running To save money for a flat she paid a woman to sit water. in with her children in the evenings, while she went out to work as a waitress. The sitter-in spent the money on going out to the pictures, and the mother was taken into court for neglecting her children. Another girl of 21, with two children and a husband given to selling-up the furniture, was living in two rat-ridden cellar rooms. A woman of 35 was too weak after a major operation to look after her nine children. A woman of 27, looking 16, had had five children since she left her orphanage and married a sailor. A woman of 40, looking 60, wife of a man who beat her, was nursing her seventh child-a 2-year-old-at the breast, in the hope that this would protect her from a further pregnancy. All these women were living in circumstances which
demanded qualities of character and outlook quite beyond their range. They loved their children, they were doing their best ; but the odds were too heavy against them, and the ordinary remedy of society would have been to send them to prison. At Brentwood, a roomy, early 19th-century house, with a good view, standing in its own garden, they get some rest, learn some principles, and look after their
own
children.
Brentwood can take some thirty children under 7 as well as the ten mothers ; and the average length of stay is about 6 weeks. The mothers do the laundry work and mending for themselves and their children and help the staff of eight with the housework They look after their children, but eat apart from them, and have the opportunity, unknown in most circles today, of consigning them to nursery attendants (of whom there are four) for parts of the day. All the time they are being taught, unobtrusively, the elements of their craftby example and suggestion rather than direction. They learn, for instance, that a floor can be scrubbed better if it is brushed first; and if this seems an elementary fact, it gives a measure of their lack of training and initiative. According to the Manchester Guardian report, the staff are good at being omnipresent without being officious : " Where suggestion fails they harry mildly ; when it succeeds they praise."
No aftercare service has so far been possible, but the staff sometimes hear, through friends of residents, of homes better kept as a result of a visit to Brentwood a year or two before. This home developed out of a holiday home which, between the wars,’took in the families of unemployed men ; during the war years it received families from the evacuated areas. It is now one of the pioneers in a new and valuable kind of social welfare, and pressure on the places available is such that cases wait nine months for admission. Yet applications to homes of this kind are only made by those magistrates or probation officers who have heard of their existence. Quite clearly we need many more such homes. At Brentwood the running costs last year were 4580. A charge of E4 weekly for a mother and E2 for each child is paid by the public-health authority or voluntary society which sends them. Plans to extend the nursery space, which at present is rather cramped, and to make room for another five mothers would cost some JE15,000—a large sum to raise. Moreover, an efficient follow-up and aftercare service is needed if the work put in at Brentwood is to have full value, An experiment which has already proved its worth, and which is used by most parts of the country, certainly deserves support. The Lancashire Community Council need some far-sighted and w-ealthy, friends. -