Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-08-16
WHERE LIFE is PRIMITIVE.
TOLD OF BY HASKIN
Daily Letter BY Frederic J. Haskin

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16:-Gov-
eminent investigators of the Chill
dren's Bureau of the Department of
Labor in a recent survey found
people living in a county in the ex-
IRENE southern confines of the Blue
Ridge Mountains under conditions
of isolation such as are almost in
credible to a great majority of the
people of the United States.
In one family whose home was
separated by a mountain range from
the nearest settlement and post office
the father had not called for his
mail in a year, the mother had not
been to the store in seven years,
and the fathers mother had lived
to be sixty years old before she saw
a railroad train.
Another woman visited had not
been to the nearest settlement, six
miles from her home, in twenty
Years, and a mother who lived only
three miles from town, a third of
that distance being an extremely
rough trail, stated that she had lived
there twelve months before she saw
another m
The father of still another house.
| llOlO III 0I Gu dllllO6L Ill IIlC duCb-
tions of the visitor which were adj
dressed to the wife and mother, x
planning hat she was too shy to
talk. She amt seen but mighty
nigh no stranger and amt never,
seen a train" he said.
These people are Of American
stock for generations back, there
being absolutely no foreigners a.
| 1nnU fhnrn Pad ranHo aud fha
mountainous character of the region
have rendered their homes almost
inaccessible at certain seasons of the
year, and some of them could not
be reached at any time by wagon
or any other vehicle. Consequently
the inhabitants are strangers to the
conveniences and advantages of
modern civilization which are ac-
cepted as a matter of course and re-
garded as necessities by people more
fortunately situated. This is partic-
ularly true of the mothers and chill
dren in whom the Government in
vestigators were especially inter-
ested.
The county in question had prac-
tically no public health resources.
There was no hospital and none in
lany OF the neighboring counties.
There were only seven physicians in
the county, say the report, and the
difficulties of travel made it often
impossible for the mountain mother
to ecure any physician. Sometimes
a sick mother or child had to be
carried over miles of rough road to
the nearest doctor.
Lack Medical Help
Necessarily the mothers and babies
suffer from the lack of medical help.
Eighty-six per cen of the mothers
who were questioned went through
the period of pregnancy without any
medical aid whatever and the others
received wholly inadequate care.
Two-thirds were attended by phys
icians in childbirth, but il a num-
Der of cases the doctor did not ar
rive until after the baby was born,
and n per cent of the mothers who
were attended by physicians were
not visited at all after the baby's ar
rival. OF the babies who died in
their first year, more than two-thirds
were not attended by physicians at
the time of death.
Ignorance on the part of the
mothers, most of them being unable
to read or write, and their lack Of
medical advice, resulted in an as
founding diet for many babies. Most
of the mothers nursed their babies
but many began giving them solid
food within a month. Buttermilk,
sweetened coffee, strip, butter, eggs.
corn bread, meat, potatoes and
other vegetables were among the
foods given babies during their first
month. Some of the foods given be-
fore the sixth month included u
age, picked beans and chocolate
candy!
AS might be expected, patent med
%icines are the bane of the community
land when the children become sick
lpatent medicines are used by many
lof the mothers. OF the children in
cluded In the survey, all of whom
were under two years of age. almost
one-half had had such nostrums ad-
ministered to them. Some of the
patent medicines reported as given
10 babies had been analysed by the
bureau of Chemistry of the United
States Department of Agriculture
land pronounced misbranded under
the Federal Food and Drugs Act.
One example cited was that Of a
lr,edicine containing sixty per cent
& alcohol by volume and also chloro-