THE STATE'S BEST ASSET.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12906, 11 September 1907, Page 6

THE STATE'S BEST ASSET.

Thanks in large measure to the untiring and enthusiastic efforts of Dr. Tritby King, public opinion is being aroused as to the terrible wastage of inhnt life that goes on in New Zealand, most of it preventable. The awakening is being followed by practical efforts to arrest this loss, and to ensure that so far ac is possible every child born in tho colony is given a fair chance of living, and of becoming in item in the State's best eeset, a community of healthy men and women. Some months ago, there was established in Dunedin, on the initiative of Dr. Truby King, a society known, as tho League for Promoting tho Health of Women and Children. It undertook, in on organised form, the work which had already been carried on under the doctor's supervision by various charitable agencies and helpers, and its mission is to spread among mothers a knowledge of the waye of health, both as regards themselves and their infante, to employ nurses who Rive advice to mothers in their homes, and to arrange for the manufacture of humanised milk and its supply in cases where tho natural food is not available. Subsequently Dr. Truby King came to Christehurch and delivered n lecture in which he set forth tho necessity for reducing the

infantile death rate and described the moans by which this could be accomplished. Tho lecture came at a time when the question of infant life preservation was being widely discussed, and it created much interest. That it boro good fruit is seen in the announcement that a public meeting will bo held in Christchurch to-morrow oveaing for the purpose of forming a «vi"ty similar to that which is doing good work in Duncdin. Dr. Truby King will be one of the speakers, and wo trust that ho will find that Christchurch is not behind Dunedin in practical appreciation of his humanitarian efforts. There i 3 much need of such a campaign, for tho figures dealing with infant mortality in this colony aro little short of appalling. How many poople, we wonder, realise that last year there were 150G deaths of infants under twelve months old? "Seventy out of, every thousand of " male children born and fifty-four out "of every thousand females are found," says Dr. Maeon in his annual report, "' to have died before attaining tho age "of one. year."' The mortality is thus "one in fourteen of male children ami "one in eighteen of females, even in " New Zealand, where conditions are " far more favourable than in Aus- " tralia, at least as far as. relates to the "cities." In the past decade the colony has lost no fewer than 15,905 babies, and tho worst feature of this dreadful death-roll is that in many cn.scs. probably in quite half the number, tho real cause of death was the ignorance of tho mothers—ignorance ot the elementary principles of health as applied to themselves, of tho urgent necessity for nursiug their children themselves, and, where this was impossible, of the proper methods of artificial feeding. Wo take pride as a people in our high etandard of education, but the figures we have, quoted convict us

as a community of gross ignorance in matters of the greatest importance. In many cases tho ignorance, is inexcusable, in some it is wilful. But if Dr. Truby King and those who have enlisted in his campaign, succeed as they deserve, the lives of hundreds of infants should be annually saved which would otherwiso bo sacrificed. It is a campaign that deserves the most heorty support.