The Editor: The Increase of Ignorance 



181 



intelligent wards. In 1914, when the 

 infant mortality all over the city was 

 low, the correlation with illiteracy was 

 .062, sensihlv zero. In 1915 it was 

 .654. ±058. 



It appears, then, that in two of the 

 four years the most intelligent wards 

 had the lowest rates of infant mortality, 

 but in the other two years there was no 

 constant association between intelli- 

 gence and a low rate of infant deaths. 



The case is not without a par- 

 allel. Dr. Devine mentions^ that 

 in Manhattan Island (New York 

 City) the death-rate for children 

 under 5 is lower below Fourteenth 

 Street than above Fourteenth vStrect, 

 and in this lower section, the death- 

 rate is less on the East vSide 

 than the West Side. "The wards 

 making up the notoriously congested 

 parts of the city, which are predomi- 

 nantly Jewish, the seventh, tenth, 

 eleventh and thirteenth, have relatively 

 a low rate of child mortality, while the 

 wards with the highest rates, the fourth, 

 sixth, eighth and fourteenth — the first 

 has so small a population that the 

 figures mean very little — -are predomi- 

 nantly Italian and Irish- American, with 

 the Chinese quarter also in the sixth." 

 Dr. Devine 's conclusion is that the 

 difference is racial, the Jews showing a 

 low death-rate regardless of crowding; 

 but in Boston the Jews were found to 

 have a very high death-rate.^ The 

 explanation of the low death rate of 

 children in the congested parts of New 

 York city seems, then, to be obscure; 

 and it is equally so in Pittsburgh. 

 Perhaps more breast-feeding accounts 

 for some of the lower infant mortality 

 in the poorer districts; and perhaps the 

 infant mortality campaign there is 

 entitled to some credit.^ In a modern 

 city nowadays the children of the 

 poor, aided by many charities and 

 philanthropies, sometimes get more 

 intelligent care than do the children of 

 the rich, who are turned over to ignorant 

 maids. These various causes are prob- 



ably all at work to lower the correlation 

 between illiteracy and infant mortality; 

 and there must be other and perhaps 

 more important causes which could 

 only be learned by a careful study of 

 conditions at close range. Whatever 

 the causes, the result is certainly not 

 creditable to the wards of Pitt.sburgh 

 which are supposed to be the more 

 intelligent and progressive. 



RACIAL DIFFERENCES 



It might have been supposed that 

 racial differences would be important 

 here, but they are not shown to be so 

 by our figures. As there is a high 

 negative correlation ( — .697) between 

 the proportion of native whites of 

 native-born parents in a ward and the 

 number of illiterates in that ward, we 

 do not expect to find that the proportion 

 of native-born residents in a ward 

 determines the infant mortality to a 

 large extent. In fact, it appears to 

 determine it not at all, for the correla- 

 tion between infant mortality and the 

 percentage of native whites of native 

 parents in a ward is —.139 ±.133 or 

 sensibly zero. The old American fam- 

 ilies of Pittsburgh doubtless consider 

 themselves superior in every way to the 

 illiterate immigrants of the slums, but 

 the rate of infant mortality among them 

 may well make them blush. 



All these interacting causes, and many 

 others which our study does not show, 

 contriVjute to the great outstanding fact 

 of eugenic importance — namely, that 

 the illiterate foreigners are swamping 

 the older and better educated, native 

 American part of the population, not 

 only by a higher birth-rate, but in 

 many cases by a lower rate of infant 

 mortality. The net increase of popula- 

 tion (in the meaning we have given this 

 term) is greatest, where the foreigners 

 are most numerous. The correlation 

 between the percentage of native whites 

 of native parentage, and the net increase 

 of a ward is negative, —.673. Not only 

 are relativelv few children born in the 



'' Devine, Edward T. Prevention of Infant Mortality. American Academy of Medicine 

 Conference, New Haven, 1909, pp. 100-102. 



5 Cabot, Richard C. and Richie, Edith K. Ibid., pp. 113-125. 



^The number of deaths under 1 vear of age, per 1,000 births, in Pittsburgh is as follows: 

 1911, 122.6; 1912, 126.7; 1913, 127.1; 1914, 114.7; 1915, 107.7. 



