The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-08-11
DOMAIN OF TEMPERANCE
THE BABYs INDICTMENT OF
DRINK.

/ g. :
1t is not the babies who die who
make the nation grow. They are an
item on the wrong side of the profit
and loss account in the nations vital
register.
All the mothers WEAKNESS and
agony, all the fathers care and out
lay of money in preparation for the
coming of the little one count for
nothing in the building of the nation
in the case of some 100000 babies
who die in the United States every
year before they are IL months old.
One baby in every ten born in the
birth registration area-New Eng
land, New York, Pennsylvania, Mich
igan, Minnesota and the District of
Columbian 1915, died before it was
year old. What was the actual
proportion of deaths to births in
other parts of the country, we have
no reliable figures to show.
During the present baby-week cam
paigns there should be reiterated
| emphasis on the fact that practically
all Investigations of the relation of
drink to child mortality have shown
higher death rate in homes where
| fathers or mothers or both were drink
erS.
A poster illustration in The Ameri-
can Issue showed that in Laitinen's
| figures on 1853 children in Finland,
1 9hCf9ininO INF onlx
cent of their children as against the
% per cent of the moderate" drink
ers and the 81 per cent of the heavier
| drinkers.
| Another illustration compares a
smaller group of families, SO abstain
ing and SO drinking families, who
lived in one village and under similar
| conditions except for the drinking.
The abstaining families lost 1876 per
cent of their children; the drinkers,
24.8 per cent.
DIR. H. H. Goddard of the Vineland,
N. j., institution for the feeble minded
found in his study of family histories
that the non-alcoholic families lost
8.5 per cent of their children in in
fancy; the alcoholic families lost 17.6
| per cent. While the absolute figures
differ from those of Laitinen's 1853
children. relatively the results mean
about the same, viz, that the alco-
holic families lost almost twice as
many babies as the non-alcoholic.
From England and Scotland comes
a similar tale. Pearson and Elderton
in their investigations in Manchester
and Edinburgh, imperfect though they
were in many respects, found that 1876
per cent. of the children of alcoholic
parents died, and 27.4 per cent of the
children of more moderate drinkers.
DR.. Adolph Kickh made a careful
| investigation in an Austrian village,
Durrnberg, where living conditions
were quite uniform. He excluded
from his alcoholic" families all who
had any tendency to cancer, tuber-
culosis or syphilis. Thus, these fam
| lilies were healthy, but one or both of
the parents were drinkers The popu-
lar drink was beer. Spirits and wine
were very little used. Hence the
alcoholic" families were practically
beer. These families lost So per cent
of their children under one year of
age; 44.8 per cent between one and
five years of age. A group of healthy
non-alcoholic families, on the con-
trary, lost only 1876 per cent of their
children under one year; 23.5 per cent
between one and five years. The
death rate of children in alcoholic
families was only about half that in
healthy families, as was the case
with the Laitinen and Goddard inves-
| legations
| Hence, though the figures differ.
depending in part on local or national
| conditions, there appears in all these
Investigations, whether they relate to
Finland, Austria, England, Scotland
or the United States, one big out
standing fact-more babies die in the
| homes of drinkers.
While we are scurrying around in
| these war days to stop up all possible
leaks in our national economy, while
the world is pouring out human blood
| like water. we can begin right now
as method of war conservation to
save the lives of babies now unneces-
sarily lost. Drink cuts off baby lives.
OF this there can be no manner of
| doubt. Which does America choose
Babies or Booze?
Cora F. Stodddrd
1,