II. GrBANTING THAT THE EaTE IS EXCESSIVE, CAN" ANY EeASON 



BE ASSIG>TED FOB THIS EXCESS ? 



Care must be taken not to ascribe our higb deatbrate to 

 general causes wbicb are operating in otber colonies and 

 countries without producing evidence to show tbat these causes 

 are more active and potential witb us. We may attribute it 

 to dry nursing, improper dieting, disproportionate ages in 

 parents, too early or too late marriages, parental carelessness 

 and intemperance, parental ignorance and wickedness, stupidity 

 of nurses, the nimia diligentia medicorum, or even to higb 

 doctors' fees ; but unless we prove that these causes are more 

 active and rampant here tban elsewbere, we shall not clear 

 matters very' much. 



Dr. McCarthy, in a paper read before the Medical Society of 

 Victoria in 1864, drew attention to the bigb rate of infant 

 mortality in that colony, and althougb he noticed that more 

 than half the deaths of those under five years occurred in four 

 summer months, he attributed notbing to the Victorian climate, 

 but in a singularly weak way ascribed this excess to careless 

 dieting, improper clotbing, impure air, and, as be was speaking 

 to a Medical Society, be emphasized the want of early and 

 sufficient medical attendance, and tbat fatal proclivity that 

 people bave for securing the attendance of quacks and heterodox 

 practitioners. But>as he afterwards asserts that for sixteen 

 years be began the treatment of nearly all diseases of infants 

 with emetics, many people will be inclined to think tbat if bis 

 treatment were adopted by the members of tbe Society be was 

 addressing, they could not delay too long in sending for tbis 

 so-called skilled medical attendance. 



There is not the least doubt that all these causes co-operate 

 to destroy children, and in the case of improper dieting, it may 

 be tbat tbe effects of improper feeding may be more marked 

 in our hot climate where there is in early life so much tendency 

 to gastric disturbance. Still, it is the duty of those tbat ascribe 

 our high deathrate to these causes to prove that these causes 

 are more active in this colony. 



Bad drainage, again, undoubtedly bas an injurious effect 

 upon infant life, and in no other way can tbe high deathrate 

 in tbe mining districts, in Hindmarsh, and in Port Adelaide be 

 accounted for. But seeing tbat many country places are neaily 

 as destructive to infant life as these badly-drained centres of 

 population, and seeing that the babies die in weather that seems 

 to be suitable to healthy adult life, I believe that time will show 

 that bad drainage is not so efficient a cause as heat, and that 

 though its influence is to destroy life, yet we must go beyond 

 it to discover the true cause of our excessive mortality. 



The cause of our excessive infant mortality I conceive to be 



