Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-11-10
PREVENTING INFANT MORTALITY
By FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

eaten she replied that it was buttermilk
and rye bread. Asked what she was eat
ing. she repliedf "Sauerkraut and
sausage"
Figures covering many years show it |
is far better to be born in the country
than in the city. The
Country Babies country baby has 80
Are Healthiest. eer cent more chance ia
weather the dreaded first year than the
city infant. This is attributed, in part to
the excess of bottle-fed babies i'm the city, |
and, in part. to the better sanitary sur
roundings of the country: Wherever city
children have been taken to the country
in numbers the result always has been
diminishing death rate among them
The improved transportation facilities
that permit the city worker to have a
suburban home have proved an important
factor in the child-saving campaign.
The experience of the social workers at
Sea Breeze and Junior Sea Breeze indi-
Gates how much may be done in lowering
the infant mortality rate by the OBJ
servance of known rules of health. Sea
Breeze is a New York philanthropy for
INDECENT mothers and helpless babies Al
babies brought there from the crowded
tenements OF New York and treated with
an abundance of sunshine and clean food
The result showed that recovery fol-
lowed in 54 cases, or 80 per cent. It'll
was then planned to- carry the Sea Breeze
idea to the mothers and children who
could not go to Sea Breeze.
A strong corps of visiting nurses en-
listed and made canvass of the upper
East Side tene-
Visiting Nurses ment districts in
M.L. &c.,. search of oppor
make canvass. tunities to aid
these unfortunate mothers and children.
BY visiting $4,000 homes they were able
to find $4,000 mothers who were sorely in
need of assistance. These mothers agreed
to cooperate with the nurses in their eff
forts to save the babies, and were in
structed in all the details of infant care.
The result was that, although the infant
death rate in other sections of the city
showed an increase that summer over
the preceding one, in the territory cover
ed by the Junior Sea Breeze workers the
rate was materially reduced
One of the gravest dangers that beset
the pathway of the baby is tuberculosis.
While stomachic troubles are more i'm
mediately fatal. and therefore the infant
death rate from those diseases much high
er. yet thousands Of consumptives who
live beyond the period Of infancy may
trace their infection back to their in
FAINT days. A child iss sensitive to con-
tagion of all kinds, even under normal
conditions, but especially so to tubercu-
losis. To make the matter more serious,
tuberculosis is better able to hide its
presence in the body of an infant than in
a grOwn-up, SO it is not suspected. The
characteristic symptoms of adult tuber-
culosiS are lacking.
In the handling Of tuberculosis among
infants. as well as among grown-ups, the
medical fra
Handicapped in Fight ternity is
Against Tuberculosis. n~ .. social et ap c pso
ditions. which form an effective bar to the
introduction Of methods which might wipe
1t of the list Of dreaded diseases Not
withstanding this they are encouraged in
their work by the knowledge that there
Is an ideal at which to aim. Strange to
say, this ideal comes from the veterina-
rian. Some years ago a DIR. Bangs decided
he could eradicate tuberculosis in cattle.
He took a herd of infected stock and put
the healthy members on farm where
there was no tuberculosis. AS calves
came In the infected herd he Immediately
carried them to the non-infected herd, and
fed them only on nOn-infected milk or on
pasteurized milk from Infected COWS. In
this way he gradually increased the size
of his nQn-infected herd and diminished
the infected herd until the latter was ex-
terminated. OF course, 1t would be i'm
possible to SO segregate people, or to take
babies away from infected mothers, but
the Bangs bovine experiment is cited by
physicians as an encouragement to them.
The economic possibilities of the baby
saving campaign Of the humanitariansl
now In session in Baltimore are beyond
estimate.
Many Of the richest contributions that
have ever been made to human welfare
were given by men who were born in ig-
nOrance, poverty and dirt. Helped by
science and philanthropy through the un-
equal fray Of the first years battle for
life, thousands otherwise doomed to an
infant grave would grow up into virie
manhood and virtuous womanhood.
MISREPRESENTATION COMMUNITIES
IN AMERICA.
moistening of head and tresses is neces-