, 1911-01-04
SAVING THE LIVES OF BABIES
(Outlooh, Non. 26.)

GROWING the entrance 10 Mccoy Hall ~
Johns Hopkins University, where the Ameri-
can Association for Study and Prevention Of
Infant mortality recently held its first annual
meeting, explained the reason why ii Nation
al organization has been formed 10 combat
death among infants. Dir. Greasy L. Wilbur,
chief statist4cIau of the United States Cen
sus Bureau, after dep.priu9 the fact that
vital statistics have been 50 grossly neglect
ed in America that our published birth and
death rates are not accepted as authentic IN
any European country, sad that in the reg
istration urea, which IN 1909 included 55.3
per cent Of our total population, no less than
l40,057 infants under one year Of age died
last year and Professor Irving Fisher, Of
the National Conservation Commission. pre-
scented carefully considered estimates show
ing that at least one-haIf OF these deaths
might have. been prevented 10y reasonable
precautions. On this bas S, it is probable
that America loses annually upwards of one
hundred and fifty thousand children through
carelessness. The one point upon which
there was absolute agreement IN the Couyeu-
ton, and which nearly every speaker cmpha-
sized, was that Sue controlling factor in the
health Of infants IS right feeding. and
that the only entirely safe food is mothers
milk, This thome was interestingly sounded
in the FIRST address of the Convention, which
was appropriately delivered by his EXcellency
NJ. Jusseraud, tlench Ambassador to the
United States, to whose tell~oW-countrymen
we owe the best methods Of combating iu-
FAINT mortality. NJ. Jusserand told how
France is encouraging breast feeding, and of
the remarkably satisfactory results That have
attended her efforts, First Paris, he said,
and then the provinces, had organized class
es for the instruction of mothers, and had
opened restaurants through which proper
food is supplied, free Of cost, to nursing
mothers, ''tAns feeding the mother and the
baby at one blow" These restaurants and
mothers clusses have worked u revolution
from the time when the man Of ninety had a
better chance for a weeks life than the baby
of one day, to- the condition Of the past SIX
months, when for the first time IN decades
French births exceeded deaths by 81 1000.
DR.. Abraham jacob, of New York, gave
statistics showing that industrial conditions
in our manufacturing communities are large
ly responsible for our unnecessarily high IN
FAINT mortality. "Womeu working ut home,
he suid, are worse off even than THEM sisters
in the factory. Their constant treadIing Of
the machine uudormines their health seam
stresses develop anemla, tuberculosis, pelvic
diseases. Clgar-makers who work ut home
develop consumption to th. extent OF oinety
per cent. Such women, living ia dirty dwell
Iings, without air or light, bear children that
are starved before they IRE born, infected
with hereditary disease, and destined either
to perish miserabIy or more miseYably to
populate asylums, hospitals, protoctories, or
peuitentiaries.'' The Association did not,
however, dwell upon this distressing picture.
Ii set itself resolutely to make general,
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