194 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY 



Although only 47 per 1,000 died of the babies breast-fed at least 

 three months, as against 166 per 1,000 of the artificially fed, even 

 this advantage was outweighed by the terrible handicap of poverty, as 

 will be at once recognized when we recall that about three times as 

 many of the poorer mothers nurse their babies as of the well-to-do. 

 The death rate among the illegitimate was about twice that of the legiti- 

 mate, a difference generally recognized as due to almost universal aban- 

 donment of such children by the father, and frequent abandonment or 

 neglect by the helpless girl-mother. 



The disease directly causing most deaths was found to be bowel 

 trouble or enteritis (usually caused by improper feeding, especially in 

 summer), closely followed by the respiratory diseases (most fatal in 

 winter), and prematurity or congenital weakness, causing death usually 

 within a few days. About 5 per 1,000 were stillborn. 



To sum up, although a certain amount of treatment of symptoms 

 may be necessary or desirable, we should bear steadily in mind that 

 whatever tends to modify social inequalities and to give to labor a fair 

 share in the products of labor will do most to save the lives of three hun- 

 dred thousand babies, yearly offered up in America an innocent sacrifice 

 to the Moloch of selfish greed. And since the whole social body must 

 suffer with the least of its members, is not the idol as short-sighted as 

 he is hideous ? 



