A BRIEF SUMMAET OF THK PROBLEM 153 



scourge had passed away, and he was apparently con- 

 tent to let things take care of themselves, trusting to 

 Providence and the Health Board. 



Among the babies there is always an appalling 

 death-rate compared with which the worst epidemics 

 that assail adults are slight. There is a plague that 

 is universally endemic and which preys upon the 

 cradle. It claims more victims than any of our epi- 

 demics, more than the great mediaeval plagues of 

 which the old chronicles tell in terms we read to-day, 

 after the lapse of centuries, with blanched cheeks and 

 throbbing hearts. Sometimes, it is true, there are 

 epidemics of infantile diseases, such as that of infant 

 paralysis lately so alarmingly prevalent, by which we 

 are terrified as we see the little funeral processions 

 in the streets or read the statistics of mortality in the 

 papers. But we ought not to forget that the epi- 

 demic diseases which rage during more or less brief 

 periods separated by long intervals are not nearly so 

 terrible as those diseases that are always present, 

 which year after year continue to sweep the babies 

 from their cradles into graves. 



Why is it that we inure ourselves to great plagues 

 and almost ignore them, while we are alarmed beyond 

 measure by outbreaks of disease that are relatively 

 imimportant ? If ten babies in any one of our cities 

 should die in a week from some unusual disease, — if, 

 for example, there were ten cases of anthrax poison- 



