154: A CITY'S DUTY IN THE PREVENTION OF INFANT MORTALITY 



The following table shows the mortality in the registration 

 area of the United States for 1909 in children under one year 

 of age: 



NON-PREVENTABLE. 



Premature births 18,286, being 13 per cent, of total mortality of infants 



Congenital debility 14,988, " 10.7 



Congenital malforma- 

 tion 7,286, " 5.2 



Violence 4,946 " 3.5 



LARGELY PREVENTABLE. 



Diarrhoea and enteritis. 36,516, being 25.4 per cent, of total morta ity of infants 



Pneumonia 17,549, " 12.5 



Epidemics and infec- 

 tious diseases 7,132 " 5.1 



Convulsions 4,613 " 3.3 



Bronchitis 4,234 " 3 



Gastritis and other dis- 

 eases of the stomach. . 2,645 " 1.9 



Meningitis 2,464 " 1.8 



Tuberculosis 2,406 " 1.7 



Venereal diseases 1,582 1.1 



Congestion of lungs 712 " 0.5 



Unclassified 6,615 " 4.7 



Other diseases 9,083 6.5 



When the full duty of the municipality is performed, many 

 of those classified as non-preventable will be classified as pre- 

 ventable. 



Through education and legislation we should act not only in 

 the care of the mother before the birth of the infant, but we 

 should deal with the problem,, aye, even before marriage. As 

 eugenic law is becoming better understood, legislation for the 

 prevention of improper marriages, for the control of the "black 

 plague," for the prevention of the propagation of the defective 

 classes, and for the suppression of the free traffic in liquor, 

 which plays such an important part in heredity, would prevent 

 the greater portion of this so-called non-preventable mortality, 

 and be productive of better health in older children and increase 

 vital resistance, all tending to a more moral and hardy race. 

 Although these methods would decrease the birth rate, a serious 

 problem now confronting this country would be solved ; viz., the 

 care of the defective classes, which are prominent factors in 

 producing infant mortality. In a recent study of this subject in 

 Philadelphia it was found that 41 per cent, of all children born 

 of feeble-minded women died in infancy. The women had an 

 average of three children each. It would be far better to pre- 

 vent these births and save not only the tax-payer the burden 

 now placed upon him in the care of the mental defective in our 

 jails, reformatories, hospitals and asylums, but in addition, the 

 heart-pangs of many parents in caring for such children in their 

 endeavor to maintain them, screened from the eyes of the world. 

 As but a small percentage of these individuals are properly 



