The Colored Race 129 



mortality, of the death of the child at birth and during the 

 lying-in-period, and finally of the dangers besetting it during 

 its first years of life. 



Despite the prolificness of the negress, the child in utero has 

 many chances against its coming to term. The temptations 

 and irregularities of illegitimacy swell the list of premature 

 and still-births, and the number reported is but a poor show- 

 ing of the real number of cases. They are looked to by 

 "grannies" and ignorant midwives. The foetus before the 

 viable age is gotten rid of and finds no record at the Health 

 Office, while the viable child usually dies from neglect and 

 carelessness, if not from criminal measures. The mother 

 practically receives no treatment, and she is soon up and about, 

 with her uterus and adnexa in a diseased state. 



Although I have no figures to bear me out, I am persuaded 

 that the prolificness is lowered, and that the liability to mis- 

 carriage is increased, by miscegenation. This has certainly 

 been my experience, and is in accord with the generally low- 

 ered vitality resulting therefrom. 



It is of course well known that the poisons of syphilis and 

 gonorrhoea both favor a throwing off of the product of concep- 

 tion. In the colored this is seen with redoubled force, due to 

 the fact that both these diseases are apt to be virulent with 

 them, and also that they do not realise their dangers or take 

 the trouble to be properly treated. Again the very early age 

 at which they become infected adds to the dangers from this 

 source. The high types of fever, vaguely styled bilious, gas- 

 tric, malarial remittent, and conjestive, to which the colored 

 are by their occupation more exposed, and to which they have 

 become more and more susceptible, frequently result in mis- 

 carriages. I have seen it follow tuberculosis pulmonum, gen- 

 eral tuberculosis, pneumonia, and measles, to all of which 

 diseases the colored are liable, and which prove very fatal to 

 theiTi. The usual causes which operate with the whites oper- 

 ate with them, and, as all the returns show, with even greater 

 effect. The following table I have made up from the mort- 

 uary reports of the last nine years : 



