The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-06
NEW WORKERS WORK
TO SAVE THE BABIES
Concerted Effort to Cut Down Appalling Death
Rate---MiIk Depots Do Great
Work in Gotham.
advertiser Correspondence, Copyright
by Frederic J. Haskin.)

talitv comes with the hot summel
months. Realizing this, New York City
has inaugurated sweeping campaign
| that will bring material relief to the
| situation and be lesson to other mum
CAPABILITIES of less progressive spirit. L
will set, with Chicago and other large
cities, a lesson in decreasing the need
| less loss of life among the infants Oh
| this country. In nine large cities of the
| United States 300 out of every 1000
babies die before they reach the age
of one wear. New York City alone
lost 17,437 last year. The chances fol-
each new born babe to live for one
week are less only to those of a man
of ninety years, and the chances for
it to live a year are less only than
those of a man of eighty. According
to DIR. Winters of Cornell Medical Col
Iege, one-third of all children born do
not reach three months in age. Among
the states the mortality of babies under
a year ranges from 274.5 per thousand
in the District of Columbia, to 121. /
per thousand in Michigan. Of log
large cities Charleston, with her great
negro population, was found to lead
in infant mortality with 419.5 out of
every thousand born there, and Los
Angeles came last with It's per thou
sand.
Bearing these striking and pitiful
facts in mind, the nation is awakening
to the need of some concerted action
that will protect babies until they are
old enough to withstand most childhood
ailments. The majority of diseases of
babies come from lack of nutrition,
from indigestible foods and from con-
tagious diseases brought in milk. The
greatest mortality is among the babies
of factory women. These must be left
at home all day and be fed on artificial
foods. The great effort is now being
made by physicians to have mothers
feed their babies at their breast. If
this were done the death rate would
be reduced one-third or one-half, and
the sick list four fifths France, in
her great effort to reverse conditions
that have made her death rate greater
than her birth rate, has instituted in
many instances the practise of setting
aside retiring rooms in factories, where
regular intervals without loss of pay
In the first year of it's life every
child consumes 500 quarts of milk. The
present educational campaign is to so
interest mothers that they will either
feed their babies themselves or secure
The best possible milk for this use. 1t
s this question of pure milk that is so
Dig, for where from ten to eleven per
cent. of breast-fed babies die, thirty
i've and half per cent. of artifcially
FED babies meet an early death. TO
get pure milk means a plan of general
education that viii extend from the
homes of the 4.O00O 900 people whose
lairies prepare the milk, to the homes
# the S0,000,000 people who consume
{. Last fall thirty-fve experts met
n Washington to talk the matter over
md decided that milk to be acceptable
must show no more than 10000 bacteria
o the cubic centimeter. Store milk has
,een found to have $4,000 to 100000
bacteria to twenty drops To render
he babies share of this milk pure and
Iigestible is the problem of the medi
al and philanthropic people of this
New York City uses 400, 1000, 900
quarts of the annual output of the
Iairies. and so far has science taken
iold there that twenty-five per cent. of
he total milk supply of the city is
Because of this work on
he part of New York philanthropists,
ed by Nathan Straus and his seventeen
milk stations, the decrease in infant
Mortality has been marked. There are
nough babies in New York City to
.eep these seventeen depots and as
nanv more busy all the year around.
bout $4,000 babies are born in New
FORK each summer, and until the es-
ablishment of the Straus depots where
900 are fed daily, the death rate for
hildren under five years old was 96.2
,er thousand for all the year. 1864 per |
thousand in the summer. Now it is :
lightly over fifty per thousand all the
ear and sixty-two per thousand in the
ummer.
The present New York movement
epresents combination of physicians,
workers. from city hospitals, charitable |
nd municipal organizations, nurseries
nd diet kitchens who find an urgent
iced for their aiding the city health !
apartment. They have been working
s separate and Independent organiza. !