234 Missouri AgricnUural Report. 



ahead of us in the records kept of their citizens. With the imperfect 

 records at their command, the Census Bureau has approximated that 

 the death of infants under one year of age for the year of 1909 in the 

 registration area was one-fifth the total deaths in those regions. One- 

 fourth of all the deaths were those of children under five years of age — 

 139,443 infants under one year, and two hundred thousand of children 

 under five years, one-fifth of a million of child lives. The Spanish- 

 American war cost us only six thousand men in deaths from all causes, 

 and think of the public demonstration of our grief as a nation over 

 their loss. It was a great loss, and our nation should recognize it and 

 spend endless dollars on peace congresses and arbitration boards to 

 do away with such dreadful sacrifies. But what about that two hun- 

 dred thousand of babies, thirty-tliree times as many lives, that are 

 dying every year? 



Eighty-two thousand deaths resulted from tuberculosis last year. 

 In our own little village of Columbia we furnish a victim every three 

 weeks, for it is not in the large towns alone that this slaughter goes 

 on. We cannot lay this crime to slums and tenements and negro 

 population. 



The large cities are doing much to reduce the number of infant 

 deaths by the establishment of milk depots, where certified milk and 

 medical advice are furnished free of charge to those who need it, 

 either by private or municipal gift. There are three hundred such 

 milk depots in the United States. Chicago alone has twenty-eight, 

 yet Chicago's per cent, of the infant mortality is twenty-seven per 

 cent, of the total deaths. Just across the Bay in Michigan City, a 

 small village of Indiana, it is twenty-four per cent, of the deaths. In 

 large cities, boards of health and philanthropic societies are doing 

 much to legislate and educate in a way that leads directly to decrease 

 of the death rate among all classes, and for infants in particular, good 

 sanitation, pure water, free dispensaries of milk and medicine have 

 been the salvation of the city babe. 



The infant in the small town or the country does not have these 

 privileges. He has, however, some other natural advantages. He is 

 born of a heartier stock, his mother has better food, he is usually 

 breast-fed, and that fact alone gives him 50 per cent, better chance 

 for his life than the bottle-fed baby. He has better air, he gets more 

 attention, more loving and romping because his mother works at 

 home, while the city mother often goes away from home to work. 

 So with these advantages and no sanitation or clean water or certi- 

 fied milk, the average country or village infant has a better chance 

 for life than the child living in the city. 



