A Social Study of the Russian German 63 
83 per 1,000 births to 51, while the rate for Dunedin, a city the 
size of Lincoln, declined from 89 to 38 deaths per 1,000 births.” 
The fact that so large a proportion numerically of the infant 
deaths in Lincoln are in a definite locality and that the causes 
producing them are fairly uniform makes the matter easier to 
handle. 
The first requisite in solving the problem is a knowledge of the 
exact causes which result in the death of so many children. This 
is not an easy thing to find out even in so small a place as Lincoln. 
So many factors enter into the problem that it becomes an ex- 
ceedingly complex one in spite of the simple terms to which 
statistics apparently reduce it.4? There are a few diseases which 
account for most of the deaths among infants and children, but 
the conditions which produce these diseases are greatly varied. 
They can probably be summed up in the two words “ dirt” and 
“ienorance,” but these factors result in things other than infant 
mortality, and, moreover, they are doubtless the basis of nine 
tenths of all the diseases to which human flesh is heir. If the 
specific forms of dirt and ignorance which cause the death of so 
many children can be discovered it will help in the early solution 
of the problem. Everywhere at present, statistics show that diar- 
rhoeal diseases are one of the three main causes for infant 
mortality. The occurrence of these diseases “depends, wholly 
or partly, upon surrounding temperature and deficiency of rain- 
fall, upon urban and social conditions, and upon pollution of food, 
chiefly milk, or other articles intimately associated with the life 
of infants.”44 To combat this one disease is no simple matter. 
The importance of a pure milk supply has been emphasized and 
much has been done in the larger cities by way of milk stations, 
42 See “ New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, 
an Example of Methods of Baby-saving Work in Small Towns and Rural 
Districts,” published by the United States Department of Labor, Children’s 
Bureau, Infant Mortality Series, number 2, Bureau pub. number 6. 
43 A casual perusal of the addresses at the annual meetings of the Amer- 
ican Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality con- 
vinces the layman of the degree of specialization necessary in coping with 
the problem, and that here also “doctors disagree.” 
44 Newman, /nfant. Mortality, 152. 
189 
