INFANT MORTALITY 237 



pie, there is the Committee on Infant Social Service of the 

 Massachusetts Municipal League which concerns itself 

 principally with prenatal influences. Then there are a 

 number of milk stations, more or less liberally supported, 

 to furnish the baby clean milk, modified if necessary to suit 

 its needs. The Milk and Baby Hygiene Association, in 

 addition to furnishing milk, has physicians and nurses to 

 teach mothers how to care for and feed themselves and their 

 babies. The Instructive District Nursing Association and 

 other philanthropic societies lend a helping_hand. 



Infant mortality and milk 



From what has already been stated, it must be perfectly 

 evident that the milk is only one part of the story. The 

 great infant mortality is caused by a complication and 

 combination of many influences. Bad milk is only one of 

 the many factors which cause an excessive infant mortality. 

 In other words, if all the milk in the world were fresh, pure, 

 and clean, the infant mortality would still be excessive, and 

 diarrhoeal diseases would still carry off schools of babies in 

 the summer-time. Just how much the infant mortality 

 could be reduced by furnishing good milk and not chang- 

 ing any of the other factors cannot be stated, but it is my 

 opinion that the reduction, while evident, would be disap- 

 pointingly small. 



Freeman believes that the decline in the inf ant mortality 

 in the United States during the first ten years, especially 

 in New York City, is due, for the most part, to the decline in 

 mortality from summer diarrhoea, and states "that the 

 general adoption of pasteurized and sterilized milk for 

 infant feeding is by far the most important agency." Holt 

 states that "the heating of the milk fed to infants in sum- 

 mer by one or the other method is now very general among 

 the tenement population of New York and has been a fac- 

 tor of no inconsiderable importance in the reduction of 

 infant mortality in the hot months." 



