186 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



for a considerable proportion of the awful yearly 

 loss of babies — that, to put it plainly, our civic 

 authorities stand in the position of murderers and 

 accessories to the murder of thousands of infants every 

 year. 



Infant milk depots have been pretty thoroughly 

 tested, in this country and in Europe, so that in 

 advocating their establishment upon a more generous 

 scale, as a municipal duty, I am not putting forward 

 a beautiful theory which is likely to prove disap- 

 pointing in actual practice. Had we nothing to guide 

 us but the experience of Mr. Nathan Straus, and his 

 magnificent record of successful life-saving in New 

 York City by means of his infant milk depots, and 

 the splendid results obtained in the city of Rochester, 

 New York, under Dr. Goler's fine leadership, there 

 would be little or no excuse for the failure of any city 

 of 25,000 inhabitants or over to establish such depots.* 



* Perhaps I ought to explain here that it is not suggested 

 that such depots are unnecessary in smaller cities and towns. 

 The milk supply in the small towns is often worse than In the 

 big cities, and the infantile death-rate is frequently very high. 

 But while I am fairly certain that any city of 25,000 inhabit- 

 ants, or over, should make such provision for its infants' milk 

 supply, I know that some smaller towns could not successfully 

 maintain special depots for the supply of milk for infants. In 

 some cases, too, they can deal with the milk problem as a whole 

 in a satisfactory manner along other lines which would render 

 special infants' depots almost, if not quite, superfluous. Per- 

 haps I need scarcely add that the standard of 25,000 is, neces- 

 sarily, somewhat arbitrarily chosen, merely to provide a proper 

 basis for discussion. 



