236 THE MILK QUESTION 



reliable milk and skilled assistants to carry out the teach- 

 ings of modern science. 



Infant mortality is a class mortality. Any one who gives 

 the subject attention is at once struck by the marked con- 

 trast between the death rate of the children of the poor and 

 those of the rich. The reasons for this must now be evident. 



Clay estimates that in England, among the aristocratic 

 families, the infant mortality is ten per cent; in the middle 

 class, twenty-one per cent; and in the laboring class, thirty- 

 two per cent. This difference among the various classes 

 is most striking in the case of the acute intestinal diseases. 



Holle states that of the one hundred and seventy deaths 

 during the first year of life, investigated in Graz in 1904, 

 which were caused by gastro-intestinal diseases, one hun- 

 dred and sixty-one were among the poor, nine among the 

 well-to-do, and none among the rich. The conclusion is 

 inevitable that intelligence, care, and money may purchase 

 not only health but life. 



England, Germany, and Switzerland have had, for many 

 years, laws forbidding the employment of women in fac- 

 tories for a certain number of weeks after confinement. In 

 some countries, such as Spain and Italy, the employment 

 of women in industry is forbidden for one month before 

 confinement. Such prohibitory laws are not effective unless 

 they are supplemented by some adequate provision, public 

 or private, for the welfare of mothers whose necessities 

 compel them to work under such conditions. Such meas- 

 ures have actually been put into force officially in Ger- 

 many and Austria. It must also be remembered that it 

 is not only in factories that women are compelled to work 

 hard and for long hours : the exacting duties of the house- 

 hold, particularly of the poor, require the mother's atten- 

 tion up to the very moment of confinement and frequently 

 a few days thereafter. 



In Boston a number of philanthropic agencies are ac- 

 complishing much good work along these lines. For exam- 



