Infant Mortality in New York City

Food and fresh air are the two things that almost wholly control the life of children until they are past two years of age.

If the stomach and intestines can be kept in normal condition, the child like any other little animal will thrive even under many adverse conditions.

The normal or healthy action of the stomach and alimentary tract depends entirely upon the child's food, therefore, child feeding is in truth the key to child health and child life.

The woeful ignorance of mothers, nurses and doc­tors in regard to infant and child nutrition is patheti­cally shown in the appalling death rate of infants in the city of New York, which we print here for the first time.

The following is a table of infant and child mortality in the city of New York:

Death Rate of Children under Two Years of Age in New York City, from Diarrhoeal Causes, and from All Causes for Two Months—July 2nd to September 3rd, 19.10, Given in Weeks.

Diarrhoeal Causes. All Causes.
Week Ending

July 2nd.
9th.
16th.
23rd.
30th.
Aug. 6th.
13th.
20th.
27th.
179
265
424
373
384
288
270
237
240

Sept. 3rd       220
2886

Diarrhceal Causes. 5126

All Causes. 20,716

It is fair to assume that mothers in New York know as much as do the mothers of any other American city about infant feeding. In other words, it is reasonable to conclude that mothers and doctors in other large American cities are as ignorant on this question as are the mothers and doctors of New York. This being true, it is evident that nearly 10,000 children die in the ten leading American cities from July first to Septem­ber first (two months) of every year.

The aggregate population of the cities referred to is about ten million. It is shown, therefore, that about one thousand children out of every million of city popu­lation die July and August of every year before they are twenty-four months old from what we assert to be mostly preventable diseases.

Our experience has been that mothers, doctors and nurses in the small towns, or country, are as ignorant on the question of infant nutrition as the mothers and doctors in the city of New York. This being true, it is not unreasonable to assume that about one thousand children out of every million population in the entire United States die every summer on account of our woeful and pitiful ignorance in regard to selecting, combining and preparing their food.

THEN WE HAVE A FUNERAL TRAIN OF OVER NINETY THOUSAND INNOCENT LITTLE ONES JULY AND AUGUST OF EVERY YEAR WHO DIE FROM STOMACH AND INTESTINAL TROUBLE ALONE, WHICH ARE THE MOST EASILY CONTROLLED AND PREVENTABLE OF ALL SO-CALLED CHILDREN'S DISEASES. THIS ARMY OF LITTLE ONES ARE CLEARLY VIC­TIMS OF UNPARDONABLE IGNORANCE.

It is also reasonable to assume and we personally in­sist that nearly all these valuable little lives could be saved if mothers were taught the simple and natural laws of infant nutrition.

Insomuch as more than half the number of deaths from all causes, shown in these tables during the two summer months, were from diarrhceal, that is to say, stomach and intestinal causes, it is entirely reasonable to assume that over half of these lives could have been saved by feeding these little ones correctly.

This work can be accomplished by teaching nursing mothers first how to feed themselves and, second, if the baby is bottle fed, teaching them how to prepare and modify or humanize its milk, which is a cheap and simple process. This is a service that every mother would willingly perform for her child if she knew how. The responsibility, therefore, for this tremendous suf­fering and loss of infant life is thrown back upon us— back upon us who do know and who are able to teach and distribute simple information that will save the breaking hearts of thousands of mothers—save human life—save the greatest asset of our common country.

If cholera, smallpox or yellow fever should become epidemic in New York and over 5,000 adults should die of any one of these diseases in sixty days, the whole city and state would be thrown into a panic. Doctors, ministers, churches, health boards, rich people and noisy newspapers would take a hand in the fight. An iron bound quarantine would be thrown around the empire city. A man escaping from New York would be looked upon as bristling with disease and death—but 2,800 helpless little ones dying every sixty days in the city of New York in summer, from stomach and intes­tinal trouble that could be easily prevented, does not attract enough public attention to be worthy of notice in the daily newspapers.

In all the branches of science, infant and child nutri­tion seems to us to be the greatest work that the human mind can find to do.

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