The Vinita daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1902-1913, 1909-07-19

known and highly skilled sociological
workers on the continent is another
woman who shakes her head over the
infant mortality records. Like Mrs.
Falkenstein, Miss Mcdowell is in a
position to know. For the children in
the tenements die like flies. 26 in one
day; in one week, 1856; in one month,
sO7; footing up to the approximate
total Of 10000 infant burials in one
year, because these helpless ones were
denied the barest demands Of exist
ence.
The squalor with which these crusa-
ders must fight. the ignorance they
must overcome and the superstition
and prejudice that must be downed
when they extend helping hand to
the mothers of foreign birth are posi-
lively unbelievable. Realizing this,
the health department issues its cir
cuIars in hot weather instructions in
English, Polish, French, German,
Italian, Greek, Hebrew. Russian and
several Of the composite tongues of
south Europe. Strange as it may seem
though in these circulars the health
department lays greatest stress on the
necessity Of daily bath for the little
one and the warnings against beer,
whisky, gin fizzes. pop, soda water,
coffee and lemonade. vodka. and such
foods as only strong men can eat, yet
many visiting nurse finds that it is
this same iniudicious diet, either
wholly or in part that has worked the
mischief to the pain-racked baby that
lies in its mothers lap, or on one of the
makeshifts for a cradle that do duty
in tenement home.
Visiting nurses numerically form
the main redemption staff for the
babies All of these nurses are grad
yates of prominent training schools,
and frequently embody the duties Of
treasurer, nurse and doctor in the
homes they visit Their lists are
made up from names and addresses
submitted by the employees and heads
OF the different milk and free ice
dispensing stations. and by those
settlement residents whose daily
house to house canvass of the slums
unearths an appalling number of sick
and ailing babies.
Conditions as we find them are
beynod imagination" commented one
of the uniformed young nurses.
Anywhere from one to ten children
and most frequently a cat or two.
dog perhaps, several boarders end the
parents will occupy one room with
no sanitary provisions whatever Only
too frequently the father is drink
cursed, or perhaps so manned by some
accident that he can't work The gen.
eral rule is that you will find brok-
en- down father striving to bear and
to rear children in the intervals Of
supporting the family. Pure milk,
supplied at low price by the milk
commission. finds place in only few
of these homes. When it is there
it is often without ice in such man
ner that it might as we'll not be there
at all BY far the greater percentage
of tenement babies must be bottle-fed.
Either hard work has denied the
mother sufficient nouishment for her
child or the struggle for existence
rises up. The mother must go out
to work by the day and cannot afford
to nurse the child. Though a child is
left at one of the day nurseries dur
ing the day. the germ filled milk. fre-
quently soured by lack of ice. that it
gets when at home at night, usually
undoes the accomplishments Of the
preceding II hours. Next to sour and
germ filled milk. dirt is the biggest
bugaboo we have to fight"