Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1918-08-08
MUST PROTECT RABIES
High Infant Mortality Rate Due to
Ignorance and Neglect for Which
There is No Excuse.

There is No Excuse.
Washington, Aug. g. = The made
quacy of the protection afforded babies
and the imperative need for more eff
fective means Of preventing the deaths
of little children in one of the towns
where conditions have been greatly
changed by the growth of war indus
tries are revealed in a report on
Waterbury, Conn.,, made public today
bv the Children's Bureau of the u. S.
Deps rtment Of Labor. Even before
the war insanitary housing conditions,
imperfect civic provision for educating
mothers in the care of their children,
indifference to the need of giving the
many foreign born mothers the al
vice and help they need to make them
assimilate American ways and Gus
toms have initiated to keep up the
infant death rate which averaged for
the years 19l0-l9l5 1865 per thousand
or about one death in every seven live
births, which is nearly half again the
rate for the U. s. Registration Area.
But the rate was not uniformly high
for all groups in the city. Two thou
sand one hundred and ninety-seven
babies born between June l, 1913, and
Nav 81, 1914, were included in the
study. In each case personal visit
10 the home was made, and the mother,
or if she were not living, the person
who had the child in charge was in
terviewed. Rich and poor, native and
foreign born were alike included and
every one Of them willingly gave the
information desired. Two hundred
and sixty-three of the babies had died
before they were year old. But of
the babies Of fathers VINO earned less
than S450 4 year about one in six
died during its first year, whereas
when the fathers yearly income was
as much as ST $50 the death rate was
greatly reduced, and about one baby
in every fifteen died. And fifth Of
the births in Waterbury were in Sanai7
lies where the father earned less than
S45O a year. By fan, the largest num-
Der of fathers in this lowest income
group were employed In the factories.
Waterbury is the largest brass and
copper manufacturing city in the Unit
ed States. The foreign born men were
much more poorly, paid than the ma
;tives: About: third of the foreign
born fathers, earned. less than $3.50 a
year, whereas of the natives only
about twentieth belonged to this low
paid group. Few foreign born faith
ers were earning as much as $1,000.
But low income is not the only inhu-
ence working for a high infant NOR
tahty rate among the children of
foreign born parents. The infant NOR
tally rate among the. Lithuanians as
a whole, who form an important part
of Waterways population, is far high
er even than that for the lowest in
come group to which many of them
belong. OF the babies born to Lithu-
anian mothers more than one in five
died before Il was year old. The
babies Of Irish mothers died at
slightly love: rate. As whole the
babies Of foreign born mothers died
at a rate more than third higher
than that Of the babies Of native
mothers.
The report points out several rea-
sons for this higher rate among the
children of The foreign born. The
foreign born mother has to contend
against more dangers to her child's
health than those which usually
threaten children Of fathers whose
earnings are low. The isolation OF, the
Lithuanian group especially tends to
keep the families from growing ac-
c'Iitoned to their surroundings in this
rev country. Many of them have
COME from the free outdoor life of the.
farm to wrestle with crowded tenement
conditions. The Lithuanians show the
largest per cent Of babies fed arti-
fcially; they show also, the largest per
cent Of infan. deaths caused by i'm
proper feeding, the neglect that comes
with Ignorance q modern hygiene,
poor housing, combined, i may be,
with summer heat against which other
conditions have left /. the babies I'M
protected.
As whole Waterbury shows an in
FAINT death rate from prevehtable d.
gestive diseases considerably higher