A BRIEF SUMMAEY OF THE PROBLEM 161 



perfect manhood and womanhood, and compels her 

 to be a drudge in an office, a mere adjunct of a machine, 

 a maker of paper bags in a sweatshop, or a charwoman. 

 Whenever we become sufficiently civiUzed to properly 

 evaluate human life, to regard the matter of dividends 

 as being of infinitely less consequence than the mat- 

 ter of infant mortality, our present attitude toward 

 motherhood will be a hideous memory of days that 

 we shall not fail to pronounce barbaric. 



But it seems to be a well-established fact that, in 

 addition to the mothers who will not nurse their 

 babies, preferring to purchase pleasure at the cost of 

 the little infant lives, and to the mothers who cannot 

 nurse their babies because they are needed in the 

 industrial world to furnish "cheap" labor, — which is, 

 from a social viewpoint, very costly labor, — there are 

 many who cannot nurse their babies because the lac- 

 teal function itself is atrophied in them. They are 

 physically unable to be mothers in the full sense of the, 

 word "motherhood." And thus it is that artificial 

 infant feeding becomes more and more common, 

 and the importance of securing a proper substitute 

 xfor mother's milk is constantly increasing, 



III 



Startling figures, terrible in their impressive elo- 

 quence, condemn the patent foods which flood the 

 market, tempting the mother who is unable for any 



