CARRIAGE OF DISEASE 
157 
person begins to realize the full extent of the ravages 
of this disease, and indeed of the mortality rate among 
young children. The Census Bureau shows that in 
1908 nearly one-fifth of the deaths in the registration 
area of the United States, comprising about one-half 
of the population of the country as a whole, were of 
children under one year, and that the deaths of children 
under five years comprise more than one-quarter of the 
whole number of deaths. Ratios are not as convincing 
or as strong as actual figures, so that we may say in 
other words that the deaths in the registration area in 
1908 amounted to 691,574; those of children under one 
year to 136,452, and of those under five years 189,865. 
It is a recognized fact that the general death rate of 
the country is largely dependent on its infant mor¬ 
tality. 
The number of deaths among children becomes even 
more striking when we consider that in 1908, according 
to the census, 197.3 out of every 1,000 under one year 
died, while 274.5 out of every 1,000 under five years 
died. It is clearly shown that summer complaint is the 
most important cause of infant mortality. Irving 
Fisher, in his estimate of lives that could be saved, 
states that sixty out of every one hundred dying from 
this disease could have been saved. The actual num¬ 
ber of deaths from summer complaint in 1908 was 52,- 
213, of which 44,521 were under two years. 
Of course there is no way of showing in what pro¬ 
portion of these cases of summer complaint the house 
fly was instrumental, but under conditions that exist 
