80 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
ciates and desires. Babies die at a greater rate where these 
advantages are lacking. 
A high death rate is coincidental with house congestion. 
Congestion implies all sorts of other unfavorable conditions 
and is usually a result of poverty. It might be relieved to some 
extent, however, if suitable homes were available at a moderate 
rate. 
Artificial feeding in the early months of life also has an im- 
portant share of the responsibility for a high infant mortality 
rate. The cessation of breast feeding is largely traceable to 
ignorance, but such ignorance is not confined to illiterates 
Either because they cannot afford competent advice on 
the subject or because they fail to realize the importance of 
feeding, mothers, acting on their own or their neighbor’s mis- 
taken judgment, sometimes discontinue breast feeding because 
they fancy their own milk is insufficient, or that it does not 
agree with the baby, or that it makes very little difference in 
any case. Some mothers stated that when they got up from 
child-bed too soon and had to take up tasks, that taxed their de- 
pleted strength, their milk left them entirely. Sometimes the 
discontinuance of breast feeding in the early days or months of 
a baby’s life is absolutely essential. A contagious disease 
or another pregnancy may make it necessary to give the baby 
artificial food. But we believe a vigorous educational cam- 
paign in favor of breast feeding is urgently needed. 
The influence of unfavorable prenatal conditions is evi- 
denced by stillbirths and by numerous deaths in the early days 
and even early hours of life, as well as by the frequency with 
which physicians certify prematurity, congenital debility and 
congenital malformations as a cause of death. Dr. Saleeby 
says, in effect, that one might say of a child whose mother had 
worked in the lead industry during her pregnancy, “better 
dead’’—if the child happens not to have been born dead. Health 
officials should try to reach prospective mothers in a com- 
munity and make known to them the dangers of such work 
during pregnancy. If the episode of birth were the beginning 
of life we might disregard these deaths and begin preventive 
work after a child enters the world. Why not consider the ad- 
visability of that measure which is now being advocated 
abroad for compulsory notification of pregnancy so that in- 
