FNFANT MORTALITY, one of those social problems which has troubled hu manitarians for the past century, and the statesmen in those countries where the birth rate now tends to drop below the death rate. So far as records show, back to the most ancient times, infant mortality has always been very heavy, which, indeed, is true of all animal life. For centuries this was regarded as an inevitable natural incident, not without its beneficent aspect, since it was be lieved that only the unfit failed to sur vive. After the industrial revolution, caused by the invention of steam driven machinery, which brought about our modern factory system of industry, with its consequent congregation of great numbers of poor people in populous cen ters, infant mortality tended to increase at a prodigious rate. Then, about a hundred years ago, sociologists turned their attention to this phenomenon, and began to investigate into causes.
Careful study then brought out the fact that it was not by any means only the unfit who died, or the better individ uals, physically or morally, that sur vived. On the contrary, it was found that often it was the children of the bet ter people who died, because they were least adaptable to the deplorable condi tions attending the poverty and conges tion of the big cities. As an instance, careful investigation proved that the poorer class people of London were grad ually becoming stunted of stature, as compared to the same class of people in the rural districts.
As a result of these many years of close study of causes and effects, it is 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. Im proper substitutes for mother's milk is, therefore, one of the chief causes of in fant mortality. This was proven no longer ago than in 1919, when, through 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 of statistics is that one-fifth of all deaths 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 chil then are the most delicate, the death rate among them being from 16 to 30 per cent. higher than among female chil dren.