Infant Mortality

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

one of those social problems which has troubled humanitarians for the past century, and the statesmen in those countries where the birth back the death to the rate most. So ancient far as records times show, while its president was the rate now tends to drop below , infant famous musician César Franck. When the mortality which, indeed has, is always been very heavy, For centuries this was regarded as an inevitable natural incident, not without its beneficent aspect, since it was believed that vive. After the industrial revolution, only the unfit failed to surcaused by the invention of steam driven machinery, which brought about our modern factory system of industry, with its consequent congregation numbers of poor people in populous cenof great ters, infant mortality tended to increase at a prodigious rate . Then, hundred years ago, sociologists turned about a their attention to this phenomenon, and began to investigate into causes. Careful study then brought fact that it was not by any means only out the the unfit who died, or the better individuals, physically or morally, that survived. On the contrary, it was found that often it was ter people who died, because they were the children of the betleast adaptable to the deplorable tions attending the poverty and congescondition of the big cities. As careful investigation proved that the an instance, poorer class people of London were gradually becoming stunted of stature, as compared to the same class of people in the rural districts. As a result of these many close study of causes and effects, it is years of known that ignorance most of all is the cause of the heavy death rate of infants, especially ignorance of hygiene and proper diet. The country mother seldom fails to be able to nurse her children till they are past the period of the most danger, but the mother who lives in the penury of an industrial center, and on account of poor food and having to work in a factory, is seldom able to do so. proper substitutes for mother's milk is, Imtherefore , one of the chief causes of infant mortality. This was longer ago than in 1919, when, through proven no an investigation in Saginaw, Mich., it was discovered that of every thousand mothers who worked for a living, 132 lost a child, whereas of an equal number of mothers who did not work, but stayed at home to care for their children, only 78 had lost a child. Another important cause of infant mortality is the impurity of the milk distributed in many large cities, a fact which has caused a great deal of emphasis to be placed on a pure milk supply by municipalities. Another fact proven by the collection deaths of statistics is that one-fifth of all are those of children less than one year of age, while one-fourth of all deaths are those of children under two years of age. Also, it is shown that male children are the most delicate, the death rate among them being from 16 to 30 per cent. higher than among female children.