The Washington herald., 1911-03-19
Problem of Infant Protection and City SAM
tation the Greatest Confronting
Modern Civilization.

| Of the nations porkers, which is not
moro than half a billion, all told, count
| ing father, mother. and the babies
When the full force of this new valu-
alton of infant life becomes apparent
| there will come a change of heart in the
warfare against death and disease. Here
| tCfore the community has prided itself
/ on being humanitarians when it has OBJ
li:erated a few novels and erected a few
sanatOriums for tuberculosis sufferers.
| In the era that is TO come, however the
| work of protecting wage-earners. who
not only make money, but circulate it,
may be regarded in as cold -blooded a
light as the damming of a canyon in or
der that some thousands or millions of
acres of land may be irrigated.
Like many other movements Of the
time, this is one which principally con-
Germs the elimination of waste. 1t has so
many angles, such intricate ramifica-
tiOns, that it is almost impossible to re-
dUce it to anything like simple terms.
Roughly speaking. though. the waste in
human beings proceeds from the follow
ing causes:
Deaths of infants. causing loss of
storks bills, &C.
Death and i'll health in growing chill
dren, in whom from one to several thou
sand dollars have been invested by their
parents.
III health of children due to prevent
able disases of parents
Diseases Of children due to lack of
sanitation, poor food. &C
Loss to homes. municipalities, States,
and national government due to cost of
preventabIe diseases of both parents and
children caused by lack of proper sani-
tation and medical attention.
Loss, direct, to business interests be-
cause purchasing power of ill and pow
erty-stricken parents is not what it would
be if they were relieved of the burden of
sickness, either of their children or them
selves.
Volumes, literally. might be written
along any one of these topics.
A Few Figures.
BY death of children alone many mil
lions are needlessly lost every year. In
the absence of exact figures, due to in
adequate registration in about 40 per
cent of the nation, we can only approxi-
mate. And to avoid being accused of ex-
aCgeration it is necessary to be so ex-
tremely conservative that the real fig
ures are dwarfed.
However. we know that about one
third of the nations deaths is of children
under twenty years. Now, figuring on
Oeatn rate OF 10 per InOuSdnQ, tnlS gives
1852, 200 deaths, of which $4,000 are Of
children under twenty, Counting the
very low average of 500 as the actual
money which each one has represented in
life, this means an expenditure of s11O.-
100000. Then, if it cost an average Of 800
to bury each one, the outlay reaches
S165,000,0O0 Certainly it would seem worth
while, by conserving the home. to save
a portion of this great SIN, as we'll as to
provide for the future millions more of
workers, wage-earners, and wage-spend-
ers.
In thirty years the death rate OF the
country has gone down one-han in
round numbers. 1t Is steadily dropping
Experts say that in less than twenty
years il probably will have fallen to half
what It is to-day. The average human
life in America lasts eighteen years long
or than it did at the close of the civil
war. This astounding situation is due,
not 10 whatever advances have been
made In medicine and surgery, but to
cleaning up cities and bettering living
conditions generally.
Saving human life and the great health
questions IN general are being recognized