DR. H. L. K. SHAW'S PAPER 135 



by the State at the rate of one dollar a week. Some 

 years later infants' asylums were established, and as 

 the infant mortality grew to alarming and distressing 

 proportions, the placing out system again came into 

 favour. 



The New York Foundling Asylum is one of 

 several institutions in that city which makes a practice 

 of placing out the babies in homes where the mothers 

 can nurse them. In the year 1912 384 babies under 

 one year of age were boarded out by this asylum and 

 of this number 308 were wet-nursed and seventy-six 

 bottle-fed. These foster-mothers and their homes are 

 regularly inspected by physicians and nurses from the 

 asylum and the mothers receive ten dollars a month 

 for the care of each baby. If a baby becomes ill, it is 

 returned to the asylum, and of 1 70 sick children so 

 returned there were ninety-three deaths last year and 

 nine deaths in the homes of the foster-parents. If 

 the mortality of this asylum were computed on the 

 number of deaths and the number of infants in the 

 institution, it would be entirely misleading and a gross 

 injustice to the institution. 



Institutions for infants are necessary, but let us 

 avoid the term asylum and all that it implies and use 

 in preference that of homes or infant hospitals. 



Every baby under one year of age requires 

 individual care, nursing, and attention to diet and is 

 almost as much care as the sick baby and should be 

 considered a hospital case. To illustrate, I would 

 like to describe the evolution of an institution with 

 which I have the honour of being connected in Albany, 

 New York, a city of about 100,000 inhabitants. 



This institution was started as a foundling hospital 

 in 1883, an d was called St. Margaret's House. A 

 study of over 2,500 infants which have been received 

 since the institution was established shows that less than 

 2 per cent, were foundlings, but that the number of ille- 

 gitimate babies outnumbered the legitimate by more 



