WHEN THE MOTHERS FAIL 19 



babies who would otherwise be able to do so, the 

 number is by no means comihei^urate with the 

 number of mothers who fail to nurse their infants. 

 No one who is at all familiar with the facts will claim 

 that all, or even most, women of the working class 

 who do not nurse their infants at the breast are en- 

 gaged in wage-earning pursuits. Such a claim would 

 be preposterous upon its face.* The trouble with aU 

 such explanations is that, while containing a con- 

 siderable body of truth, they are not adequate as 

 explanations. Each of the causes we have considered 

 operates in some degree, but even when taken to- 

 gether they do not suffice to explain the phenomenon. 

 With the vast majority of women who find them- 

 selves unable to discharge this important maternal 

 duty the trouble is not social or economic, but physio- 

 logical. This cannot be too strongly emphasized. 

 We have to deal with nothing less fundamental than 

 the absolute decay of the function itself. There is 

 not, so far as I am aware, any considerable body of 



* I have only discussed here the phase of the question which 

 has been so much to the fore in England recently, — the 

 interference of industrial pursuits with maternal duty. There 

 is a very much bigger question of the effects of industrialism 

 upon the maternal functions, which I cannot undertake to 

 discuss here, and which is not properly in place here : to wit, 

 the physiological results of employment during girlhood in 

 factories, stores, sweat-shops, and so on. It would be interest- 

 ing to know whether such employment, especially when it is 

 begun at a tender age and continued during several years, has 

 not a prejudicial effect upon all maternal functions. 



