MILK SURVEY OF THE CITY OF ROCHESTER 61 



On the other hand, there was scarcely any growth in any of the forty, 

 or forty-one to be exact, of the children still fed on the cereal and meat 

 diet by the institution. Only three or four children have made any ap- 

 preciable gains, and those apparently have made their gains because the 

 parents frequently visited them bringing them some food. It is a form 

 of demonstration which has been of great value to me in convincing me 

 that the general theory which I have set before you is correct. I have 

 also a large number of observations on children in, a certain Jewish school 

 in Baltimore which shows 50 per cent, of them to be 25 or 30 per cent, 

 under weight for their age and height. 



Q. Do you know of any evidence that undernourishment is of com- 

 mon occurrence in children who are not properly fed on milk? 



A. There has been a general awakening in several cities during the 

 last few years in the matter of the interest of child welfare and conserva- 

 tion of child life. This is not only true in America, but the world over, 

 as is shown by the activities of the Red Cross in various places in trying 

 to rescue child life from its dangers. There have been medical examina- 

 tions in various cities of all the school children, or a large number of 

 them, and I have in mind particularly New York. I cannot state exactly 

 now the per cent, of undernourishment in the total number examined. 

 If I remember correctly, there were approximately seventy-five thousand 

 school children examined a year or so ago, and I believe there were 21 

 per cent, undernourished. There have been made very extensive observa- 

 tions of children in Seattle, Washington, not only with respect to under- 

 nutrition, but especially the condition of the teeth of children, which is a 

 very good index of the physical development of the child. 



Q. Do you think it is a desirable thing that there should be a sys- 

 tematic effort to weigh and measure school children ? 



A. The measurement, or I think the weight and the accurate record- 

 ing of those observations, together with such other medical observations 

 as it may be possible to make on all school children in every city and 

 hamlet of this l^nd, is one of the most important duties of the govern- 

 ment. It should be the attitude of local authorities to carry that out in 

 every instance. We have no moral right to allow children to grow up 

 on faulty diets which make it impossible for them to develop as well as 

 their capabilities make possible. 



Q. You think that such a systematic weighing and measuring 

 would be a great help in revealing the presence of under-nourishment ? 



A. There is no question about that, and interest in this matter is 

 now manifest in various communities, and there can be no question but 

 that it would be of great value in aiding us in further correlating the 

 data which we have obtained from animal experiment to human problems. 



