224 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



milk depot should be given all, or nearly all, of the 

 credit for the decline, especially by its enthusiastic 

 advocates. But the student must move slowly and 

 take accoimt of many other matters. What, for 

 example, were the climatic conditions? Was there 

 any improvement in the sanitary system ? Were the 

 streets kept cleaner than formerly? Was there a 

 general decline throughout a large part of the coim- 

 try, due to a marked freedom from epidemics ? Was 

 there any industrial change which enabled more 

 women to care for their babies? Were there other 

 agencies beside the depot in operation, such as crhches 

 and day nurseries, district nursing, children's hos- 

 pitals, or dispensaries ? In a word, the student must 

 take into account all the facts. 



Again, figures are sometimes published in connec- 

 tion with criticisms of infants' milk depots, professing 

 to give the mortality among children fed upon milk 

 supplied by the depots and invariably showing a high 

 rate of mortality. Such figures are quite deceptive, 

 for the reason that, as stated elsewhere in this chap- 

 ter, most of the infants brought to the depots are 

 more or less sick and debilitated already, so that the 

 mortality rate, like the mortality rate among hospital 

 and dispensary patients, would naturally be high. 

 Further, the number of infants receiving milk from 

 the infants' milk depots in many cities is too small to 

 have any appreciable effect upon the mortality rates. 



