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When God still hid you for mother
in her womb.
so mother let me listen to you, quietly,
with my head pressed gently against you.
Full of suspense she bent herself over my listening
eyes.
As I said, whispering: "a little sister" mother smiled, as if she
had discovered a glorious secret.
"Certainly", she said, "your eyes! they tell me surely
that it will be a sister!"
This noble, innocent and chaste knowledge of procreation is a thing, which many Western peoples have forgotten, and have to learn again in my opinion.
With regard to Public Health Nursing I think, that our Society can do many things.
As I have already said, many other agencies are doing the same work, as for instance: the "Green Cross", the "Wijkverpleging". etc. but all these work nearly exclusively among Europeans with European nurses.
The Government has its Nursing Schols for native nurses, and when a sufficient number have been trained, our Society can lay hands on some of them; of course the latter can also train nurses in its own hospital at Buitenzorg.
But native nurses are necessary, for with European ones we will not attain results among the natives in their homes.
But I must repeat here once more, that in this time of depression, it will be impossible to think of it.
When our Society tries to co-operate with the Boy- Scouts-organisation, which in Java has also many native scouts, I think, it will not be difficult to form a strong Junior Red Cross (Star) section,
As regard the role of our Society in relation to special oriental diseases, it seems to me, that our Society can do much,
by helping the Government and other organisations with auxiliaries.
Many years ago, I, as Chief of the Public Health Service of Batavia, organized a vaccination-brigade in times of cholera- epidemics. Members of this brigade were the wives of native Doctors and other Javanese, or Malay girls, who were trained by a Doctor to vaccinate against cholera, and were intended to vaccinate the female Mohammedan inha- bitan's. In the same way we trained Javanese or Malay men, who in the day-time had other business, but in the evening came to vaccinate. Of course the Service paid them fees for that special work. The vaccinations took place under continous supervision of a Doctor, but because so many auxilliary vaccinators were working together, the work was done very quickly.
In this manner I succeeded in stopping cholera-epidemics within a very short time, and it seems to me, that in such a manner our Society could do good work aiding the Medical Service in its fight against infectious diseases, for instance against typhoid, small-pox, etc., of course by mutual arran- gement.
Of course I know, that a very strong opposition exists among medical men against vaccinations by such auxiliary vaccinators, but as I have had not one deplorable accident, among many hundreds of thousands of such vaccinations, you will understand that I am an advocate of that system.
With regard to malaria, I believe, that also in co-operation with the Boy-Scouts much can be done, viz. to find out the worst places with dangerous mosquitoes, to petrolize those places and to aid with the distribution of quinine in times of epidemic.
Upon opium you will find much in the annexe, and i think, that the work of our Society in the Dutch Indies can only be to aid the Government and the Anti-Opium-Society when the latter will become active in the propagation of good ideas regarding this drug.
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