HEALTH VISITOR, a public or private official or other person whose duty it is to see that laws relating to public health and sanitation are obeyed.
The status of health visitors in Great Britain is now fully established by the Memorandum lot MCW issued in Feb. 1925 by the Ministry of Health. Under that Memorandum, eight insti tutions were approved for the training of health visitors, five in London, one in Durham, one in Leeds and one in Bristol. After April 1, 1928, the appointment of women as whole time health visitors under a local authority is not approved unless they possess the new health visitor's certificate or the diploma given under the board of education. A health visitor's certificate can be ob tained by a fully trained nurse who also holds the certificate of the central midwives board if she has taken a six months course in public health work followed by an examination. On the other hand if she is not a fully trained nurse, providing that she has had six months training in hospital and has undergone a recognized two years course of training at one of the institutions and has passed the necessary examination and holds the certificate of the central midwives board she is then entitled to take an appointment under a local authority. On March 31, 1927, there were 2,23o health visitors employed by local authorities in Great Britain and of these 936 were engaged wholly on maternity and child welfare work. The remaining 1,294 combined these duties with other public appointments such as those of school nurse or sanitary inspector. There were in addition 343 health visitors employed by voluntary agencies in connection with infant welfare centres and 1,390 district nurses employed by nursing associations were also utilized by county councils for health visiting in rural areas.