A METHOD OF DETERMINING THE INFLUENCE OF 



MEDICAL PHILANTHROPY IN REDUCING THE 



MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY 



OF INFANTS 



By HENRY L. COIT, M. D., Newark, New Jersey 



There is no work to which physcians devote their time and 

 thought, with the object of securing results in preventive medi- 

 cine, which yields so satisfactory a return for their labor as 

 that performed in infants' hospitals, milk dispensaries and con- 

 sultations for mothers with nursing or sick infants, especially if 

 this work is done in conjunction with facilities for gathering 

 reliable statistics. 



Physicians give their time to medical charity, not alone for 

 the experience gained (the motive usually ascribed to them), 

 but they contribute their knowledge, judgment and supervision 

 for the broader and more humanitarian purpose of reducing 

 sickness and death among the helpless, and they also entertain 

 the hope that their labors will increase the viability of their 

 fellows. 



In the study of the problems of infant morbidity and mor- 

 tality, it does not matter whether the investigator be a physician 

 working in hospitals or among the sick of his own community 

 or whether, as an economist, he is studying the wider national 

 problems in this field, the facts gathered through the agency of 

 medical philanthropy become a most valuable asset to himself and 

 the public. 



There are many different organized agencies employed for the 

 reduction of infant morbidity and mortality. These are hospitals 

 and clinics where infants are treated for a short time or inter- 

 mittently and then returned to their homes, milk dispensaries, 

 consultations, infant or foundling asylums, orphanages and bu- 

 reaus for placing out homeless or abandoned infants, schools for 

 the training of infants' nurses, philanthropic associations not 

 under hospital supervision for the training of mid-wives and 

 maternity assistants for the protection and ante-natal care of 

 expectant mothers, municipal and other agencies which employ 

 nurses to teach infant hygiene in the home and State and fed- 

 eral agencies which, by ordinance and law, attempt to influence 



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