A CITY'S DUTY IN THE PREVENTION OF INFANT 

 MORTALITY 



By JOSEPH S. NEFF, >I. D., Philadelphia, Director Department of 

 Public Health and Charities 



In the event of cholera, yellow fever, small-pox or other pub- 

 licly dreaded diseases, glaring head-lines and front-page news- 

 paper articles arouse and alarm the community. Public and 

 private aid is immediately placed at the command of the muni- 

 cipal health officer, and all the forces and energies of our best 

 civic life are enlisted with him to combat and defeat the inroads 

 of sickness and death. Yet, the mortality from those diseases 

 sinks into insignificance in comparison with the mortality of 

 infants. 



Diarrhoea and enteritis are terms suggesting no alarm, yet, in 

 1909 in the registration area of the United States in every 100,000 

 of population, 72.8 infants died from this cause. Of these deaths 7_Q 

 per cent, of these deaths were preventable. In the same year tuber- 

 culosis, pneumonia, and diarrhoea and enteritis (88 per cent, 

 of which occurs in children) which are not dreaded, caused 43 

 per cent, of the total deaths from disease without creating any 

 public comment. If we assume the mortality in the non-regis- 

 tration area of the United States to be the same as in the regis- 

 tration area, 19,419 deaths from typhoid fever was the record 

 of the past year, much more publicity being given to this disease 

 than to the mortality of infants, which was 253,268, or 19 per 

 cent, of the total deaths, the majority of which were preventable 

 a much larger mortality than in any other age period or from 

 any single disease. Tuberculosis of the lungs, against the spread 

 of which more concentrated work, more time and money has 

 been devoted ($3,000.000 having been appropriated by the 

 Pennsylvania Legislature alone during the past three years) 

 than in any other health effort, yet, the mortality from this 

 disease last year was 126,610, fifty per cent, less than the mortality 

 of infants. Is it not time to demonstrate to the municipalities and 

 commonwealths their duty in lessening this needless mortality? 

 To best study the problem it is necessary to separate the prevent- 

 able from the non-preventable deaths. 



NOTE. Where infants are mentioned without designating any particular 

 age, those under one year of age are referred to. 



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