The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-09-05

case Of the baby, the $50 represents the
discounted value Of his future earnings.
taking into account, also, the cost of the
care given him until he is able to look
out for himself, and the cost Of the care
which may have to be accorded him in
old age.
1t is estimated that about 100000 babies
were born in the United States last year,
and that $4,000 or 10 per cent of that
number, died within the year To find
the value of dollars and cents of this ap
palling loss of human life you only have
to multiply 80 by $4,000 1t amounts to
S3,3l5,0O0. Add to this an average of S25
apiece spent for medical care and other
attention and you pile few more mil
lions on to the total loss
Physicians who have gone straight to
the heart of the matter believe that 90
per cent if not more, of this tremendous
waste of life could be prevented They
fix the blame partly on social conditions
and partly on the Indifference or negli-
gence of health officials. They declare
that the problem could be solved by the
registration of births, and in connection
with that the instruction Of the mothers
in the proper care of the babies; the en-
fOrcement of the regulations which pre-
vent the contamination Of the food and
the water supply, and OF those which Sc
cure improved housing conditions, with
an adequate supply of fresh air and sun
light for rich and poor alike. These ply
sicians who work among the babies say
that if a pestilence were to carry off only
One-tenth as many babies as die from
the Ordinary" illnesses every year, the
entire country would clamOr for remedial
measures. But people are used to see
ing the little hearses on the street and
nobody gets excited over them.
There is another feature that empha-
sizes the extravaganza of this waste of
baby life. When an adult RECEIVERS from
an illness il usually leaves him with low
cred vitality, A baby's recuperatiVe pow
ers are much greater. A baby may be
dragged down to deaths very door by
summer complaint. but the disease leaves
no weakening handicap If he RECEIVERS
he is likely 10 be ia the running the next
year for the prize for the plUmpest,
healthiest yOungSteT in the baby show.
The total amount spent by the United
States government to protect cattle from
disease counts up into the millions. Bas-
ing the estimate on the 81, 4ZIS60 apprO-
Driated for the bureau of animal indus
try of the bureau of agriculture for the
current fiscal year. not less than $lSOOO,OOG
or S20O00OO0 has been expended in the
last five years by the federal govern
ment to- protect animals from disease or
deterioration Of the sum set apart for
1909 $1,000, 200 is for meat inspection alone,
and a large slice of the rest goes to-
ward the suppression of bovine tubercu-
lOss and the improvement Of the milk
sUpply-preventive measures of inealcu-
liable benefit to human kind. But while
such expenditure COnSeTVeS public health
i'm the end, it usually has been sanctioned
at the beginning because important COM
public health measure was up for dis
crssion I'm an Indiana legislature recently
enc of the legislators said that he had
been requested over and over again by
his constituents TO vote for laws to pro-
tect hogs from cholera and trees from
scale but he had never before been asked
to vote for measure to protect women
and children from preventable disease.
Since the world began the crop of ba-
bies has been fairly constant. The quail
ity of the crop. the diseases that nave
carried off hundreds Of thousands every
year, have never caused the slightest
flutter Of the stock market CONNER
cfaIIy considered the American chick has
loOmed up much larger in financial cal
culations than the American baby But
the baby is a potential American citizen.
And since ne had been officially recOg-
uized as a national resource il becomes
a national duty to protect him from dis
ease and deterioration. and to give him
the chance that is his due to grow up into
healthy maturity.