WHEN THE MOTHERS FAIL 15 



tive of ill results, and is therefore improper, is never- 

 theless not so much the result of special ignorance on 

 the part of the mothers as of general human ignorance 

 concerning some important aspects of a relatively 

 new problem, the substitution of artificial foods for 

 mother's milk. Every physician of large general 

 practice knows of cases in which babies have died, 

 literally of starvation, simply because science could 

 not provide them with a proper substitute for the 

 milk their mothers' flattened breasts refused to yield. 

 I know of several cases in which medical men of large 

 experience and unusual qualifications have seen their 

 own children wither and die after the most heroic 

 devotion to the task of saving them. This is a con- 

 dition of ignorance, of course, but it needs to be 

 sharply distinguished from the ignorance of the 

 mother who blindly gives her child food which science 

 and common sense alike have long associated with 

 disease and death. 



Among savage tribes in many parts of the world 

 the custom has prevailed of killing suckling babes 

 whose mothers died, or of burying the infant alive 

 •in the same grave as the mother.* They knew no 

 means whereby they could keep the child alive, ex- 

 cept in those rare instances where foster mothers 

 were available, as when a mother lately bereaved of 

 her own child claimed the motherless little one to fill 

 its place. Inability to nurse their own offspring is 



