550 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



largely ignorant or indifferent, was blighted by the influence of a de- 

 stroying environment. 



The progress of the industrial world for the last century has been un- 

 paralleled and almost incredible. The organization of industry, the rise 

 of combinations, the fuller utilization of the forces of nature, our 

 marvelous inventions, the increasing division of labor and greater in- 

 sistence upon bodily vigor are devices calculated to lessen the cost of 

 production of goods. In certain industries, for example the oil and 

 packing industries, such a state of ^perfection has been reached that 

 little if any waste products remain, although twenty years ago a large 

 residue was continually lost. The decrease of unnecessary cost and 

 labor is the goal of industry. Apply this principle to the cost of 

 propagating the human race and what do we find ? Is not the tax and 

 strain upon the expectant mother too great to permit even an apathetic 

 society calmly to ignore the just claims of dying infants for the op- 

 portunities which make for a life of usefulness and service? The 

 eighteenth century began to answer this question, but even the twentieth 

 has not yet given a satisfactory reply. The darkness and austerity of 

 a civilization finds no mean measure in its infant death rate. In this 

 respect great progress has indeed been made, but it is an advance far 

 outstripped by the progress of industry. Social progress has proved 

 the laggard, but may yet make amends for past neglect. 



The wholesome changes of the past one hundred and fifty years 

 are indications of great possibilities. The conditions in London only 

 reflected those existing throughout all England which lived beneath 

 the pall of the blighting destroyer of babes. In recent years three 

 fourths of the children in London have lived to the age of five. As 

 late as 1761, however, 50 per cent, of London's population perished 

 before reaching the age of twenty. To-day half the people of England 

 do not die until after the fifty-fourth year has been reached, and the 

 infant mortality — the death rate for children under one year of age 

 — had fallen in 1903 to the creditable figure of 144 per 1,000 births for 

 the seventy-six great towns of England. Even this rate is somewhat 

 above the average for the entire country. In Prussia during the 

 decade 1751 to 1760 only 312 children out of every 1,000 births sur- 

 vived to the age of ten. At this age the child is still an economic cost; 

 it depends upon others and yields no surplus to society. Yet two 

 thirds of the entire population failed to reach an age of social useful- 

 ness, and perished after body, mind and resource had been spent to 

 give it a proper place in human society. The record of a later decade, 

 1861-70, shines in comparison with the former, but is still fraught 

 with fears for the future. Six hundred and thirty-three individuals 

 were being saved out of every 1,000 — a promising decline, but one not 

 measuring up to the hopes of social amelioration. Is it any wonder 

 that former mothers, full of grief and anguish at the sight of lifeless 



