Los Angeles herald., 1910-09-06
SEEK TO PROTECT
HEALTH OF BABIES
Baltimore Meeting Is to Discuss
Plans for Lowering In ~
fantS' Death Rate
DRAWS WORLDS ATTENTION
France Leads Movement to Give
Youngsters Chance to
Reach Maturity
DRAWS WORLDS ATTENTION

infant mortality which will be held
under the auspices of the American
Association for Study and Prevention
of Infant Mortality at Baltimore next
November, important contributions
will be made to the program by men
and women who have taken an active
part in the fight which has been car
ried on this summer in behalf of the
babies. The dominant notes of the
meeting, according to the preliminary
program which has been sent out
from the headquarters of the associa-
ton, will be prevention" "conserva-
tion''I and education" The work of
health officers and sanitarians will be
state and federal prevention, of which
DR.. William H. Welch of the Johns
Hopkins Medical school is chairman;
milk dispensaries, classes for mothers,
the activities of visiting nurses and
of similar undertakings will be re-
ported upon in the session on philan-
thropic prevention, of which DR.. Has
tings H. Hart, director of the depart
ment Of child helping of the Russell
Sage foundation, is chairman; medical
prevention will be the subject of the
session over which DR. L. Emmett
Holt, professor of the diseases of chill
dren of Columbia university, will pre-
side; and prevention by better training
for parenthood will be discussed at
the session on educational prevention,
of which DR.. Helen c. Putnam of
Providence, R. l., the head of the COM
mittee appointed by the American
Academy of Medicine to investigate
the teaching of hygiene, will be chair
man. The president of the association
is DR.. J. H. Mason Knox jr., of the
Johns Hopkins Medical school, and the
secretary Is DR.. Linnaeus e. LaFetra
of New York city. editor Of the Ar
chives of Pediatrics.
FRANCE LEADS WAY
In spite of its up-to- -dateness in other
matters our own country as a whole
has been somewhat slow in realizing
that since the babies of this generation
are the material out of which the citi-
zens of tomorrow are made, 1t Is COM
mon sense economy to see that they
have a. fair chance to grow to healthy
maturity. In the movements now be-
coming worldwide France has the dis
tinction of having led the way. The
name which stands out most promi-
nently on <he French roll of honor in
this connection is that of DR.. Budin,
the leader in the plan for the conser-
walton of the health Of the babies
through the education of the mothers.
DR.. Budin's Consultations" estab-
lished in 1890 in connection with his
clinic at Nancy, and in 1892 In connec-
ton with the Charlie hospital at Paris,
to which the mothers brought their
babies for weekly inspection and ad-
vice, were the forerunners of the con-
sultations now to be found wherever
there Is carefully organized work for
the babies.
Asked one day to define the essen
tials of a successful consultation, DR..
Budin replied "the services of a devot-
ed physician and pair of scales" In
our own country, and in practically all |
others in which the French idea has |
taken root, the trained nurse has been
added to the list of essentials. Since |
the weight of the baby is such an i'm |
portant index to his physical condi-
ton, it is easy to understand why the |
scales figure so prominently in the |
equipment.
DISPENSE PURE MILK
Following the establishment of the |
Consultation came the organization
about two years later by DR.. Variot at
Paris, and DR.. Dufour at Fecamp, of
what they call in France the "Goutte
lie Lait" or Drop of Milk" and which
s known in this country as the
Babies Milk Dispensary,'' or the 'In
ANTS Milk Depot" Instruction of the
mothers in infant hygiene and infant
eeding is an important feature of the
milk depot, but along with it milk suit
tble for the use of the baby is sold
1t a low cost, or, if necessary, is dis
)ensed without charge for the babies
Who have to depend upon artificial
eeding.
Within a short time after the first
Soutte de Lait had been opened in
france the idea had spread to other
E.,fa M, .P lAAf.
lealth officers across the channel to
tudy the methods In vogue there, and
milk dispensaries were soon established
n the British Isles. One of the first
of the sort in this coun-
ry was opened by DR.. Henry Koplik
n New York city in 1889, and in 1893
Nathan Strauss established the first of
lis depots for the distribution of pas
eurized milk. For several years the
Jew York milk committee of the Asso-
iation for Improving the Condition Of
he Poor has conducted consultations
or mothers and has carried on an i'm
ortant campaign of education as a
art of the work at the milk depots.
)uring the present summer forty-nine
lilk dispensaries have been in opera
lon in Greater New York. under the
uspices of various philanthropies.
LOWER DEATH RATE
DR. George w. Goler, head of the de- '
of health of Rochester, N. Y,
ioneered the movement among health '
ficers in this country, and the {
rochester milk depots were the first s
municipal milk depots in the United 6
tates. In the first ten years of their t
xistence the summer death rate for !
1at city of children under five years +
{ age was cut down 80 per cent.
Other cities have adopted the consul s
alton and the milk dispensary as a /
leans of reducing their infantile death /
ate, and according to the latest sta
cs reported by the United States pub t
c health and marine hospital service,
lilk depots are operated in about t
lirty cities in the United States. Only l
few are conducted under the auspices '
{ local health departments; the ma t
'rity are supported by private philan-
lropy.
In spite of the fact that the majority
{ the children who are supplied with I
lilk from the dispensary are sick when {
rst carried to the milk depots, in {
racticaly every instance, the estab- !
shment of the milk depots has been c
1llowed by a reduction in the infant /
cath rate. The Babies Milk Dispen- S
ary of Baltimore, which was estab
shed by the Thomas Wilson Sani-
arium for Children in 1900, and which s
as been conducted since 1907 by the '
tables Milk Fund association, reports t
hat the death rate among the babies !