Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-10
NegIectS BabieS-Cares for Cattle

Physicians who have gone straight
to the heart of the matter believe tnal
so per cent, If not more, of this tre-
mendous waste of life could be pre-
vented They fix the blame partly on
social conditions and partly on the in
difference or negligence of health otfl-
cials. 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 regul-tion of the food
and the water supply, and of those
which secure improved housing condl-
tions. with an adequate supply or tresh
air and sunlight for rich and poor
alike. These physicians who work
among the babies say that If a pestl-
lence were to carry off only one-tenth
as many babies as die from the "ordi-
nary" 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 recovers from
an illness 1t usually leaves MIN with
lowered vitality. A baby's recupera-
tive powers 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 to be IN
the running the next year for the
prize for the plumpest, healthiest
youngster in the baby show.
The total amount spent by the
United States government to protect
cattle from disease counts up into the
millions. Basing the estimate on the
81. 427, $50 appropriated for the bureau
of agriculture for the current fiscal
year. not less than $1S000,CJ0 or $780,
900. 900 has been expended in the last
five years by the federal government
to protect animals rom disease or
deterioration. OF the cum set apart for
1909. $4,000, 900 is for meat inspection
alone, and a large slice of the rest
goes toward the suppression of bovine
tuberculosis and the Improvement of
the milk supply-preventive measures
of incalculable benefit to human kind.
But while such expenditure conserVes
public health in the end, it usually
has been sanctioned at the beginning
because important commercial interests
were at stake. When public health
measure was up. for discussion in an
Indiana legislature recently one of the
legislators said that he had been re-
duested 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 a measure to pro-
tect women and children from preven-
tion disease.
Since the world began the crop of
babies has been fairly constant. The
quality of the crop, the diseases that
have carried off hundreds of thousands
every year have never caused the
slightest flutter Of the stock market.
Commercially considered the American
chick has loomed up much larger in
financial calculations than the Amer
lean baby. But the baby is a potential
American citizen. And since he had
been officially recognized as a national
resource it becomes a national duty
to protect him from disease and de-
terioration, and to give him the chance
that is his due to grow up into healthy
maturity