IXFAATILE MORTALITY. 



689 



improvements in public health administration of the last 30 years, 

 is a problem of special interest." 



The object of this paper, however, is not so much to discuss 

 how far administrative measures may serve, or to discover how much 

 infantile mortality is due to causes which may be directly attacked 

 by legislation and administration, and those which cannot be so dealt 

 with, but rather to say something on the measures which have been 

 proposed in late years to deal with this great problem. 



So much has been said and written during the last decade about 

 infantile mortality that the remedies proposed and suggested are 

 even more mmierous and varied than the causes assigned to it. It 

 is obvious, therefore, that if we are to deal successfully with the 

 problem confronting us, there is need of more specialised measures 

 than those hitherto adopted. 



The National Conference held in London in June of 1906 closed 

 a period of isolated and spasmodic effort, and marked the commence- 

 ment of what, it is hoped, may prove an united, systematic, and 

 organised attempt to deal with the problem of infantile mortality. 

 At that congress, presided over by the Right Hon. John Burns, the 

 President of the Local Government Board, Mr. Burns, said : — " There 

 -are, in the United Kingdom, over 100,000 infants under 12 months 

 old who are ruthlessly put to death, not willingly, but through 

 ignorance and vice." 



Ignorance, therefore, would seem to sum up the causes, as 

 Education would appear to be the keynote in the pi'evention of this 

 waste of infant life. 



Tlie following statistics from various countries are of interest : — 



In Paris, the deaths at all ages from all causes (1892-1897) was 

 303,206. The deaths of infants under 1 year of age per 1,000 of all 

 deaths at all ages was 145'35. 



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