112 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



INFANT MORTALITY IN CANADA. 

 BY DR. HELEN MACMURCHY. 



Toronto. 



INFANT mortality in Canada is too high, but you 

 will be glad to hear that it is not quite so high as it 

 was supposed to be by one of our recent visitors, who 

 says in his newspaper in 1912, speaking of the infant 

 mortality of Ottawa : "If infants are polished off 

 at that appalling rate, small wonder that Canada is 

 crying out for emigrants." 



Another well-known English journal says in 1911, 

 referring to a visit to Canada: "The disquieting 

 feature is the complete lack of any thinking about the 

 problem. To begin with the babies. Generally, 

 throughout the cities of the Dominion, the infant 

 mortality is terrific, apparently equalling that of 

 the worst slums of Preston and Liverpool." 



Visitors, as well as emigrants, are welcome in 

 Canada, especially those from the Motherland. Come 

 one, come all. Come as often as you can, and stay 

 as long as you can. The visitors quoted above were 

 welcome, but they did not stay long enough and did 

 not read the Canadian newspapers en route. In 1911 

 and 1912 Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and 

 other Canadian papers had frequent editorials and 

 news about infant mortality. 



If the travellers had only stopped at Fort William 

 to visit Dr. Wodehouse, the Medical Health Officer 

 there, they would have found that when he entered 

 on his duties, in July and August, 1910, sixty-three 

 babies died (chiefly of infant diarrhoea) and that Dr. 

 Wodehouse did " some thinking about the problem," 

 with the result that while the Pullmans carrying our 

 distinguished visitors rushed through Fort William, 

 he was working to such good effect that where sixty- 

 three babies died in July and August, 1910, only 

 twenty-one died in July and August, 1911. 



