Sir, – Dr James Deeney, chief medical officer at the Department of Health in the 1940s, wrote a memoir, To Cure and to Care. In it he mentions the very high infant mortality rate in Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork. He described how the Department of Health closed it down until the source of the infection was identified and addressed. This led to a real and dramatic reduction in the number of infant deaths. – Yours, etc,
CILIAN Ó SÚILLEABHÁIN,
Cork.