PLUNKET SOCIETY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 141, 18 June 1927, Page 7

PLUNKET SOCIETY

AMERICAN EULOGY

In Great Britain as well as in the Dommwns of the Empire the Plunket system for the welfare of mother and child has in recent years been steadily extending, A proof that its value is b coming increasingly recognised in the United States is shown by an artielo published ia the "Sunday News" of New York, of 27th March, headed "Two Eaces, New Zealanders and Jews, Head World with Very Low Infantile Mortality. The article says in part: The chief rabbi attending the Fourth Congress on Maternity and Child Welfare m London, on .sth July, 192G, made the following statement: Throughout the history of the Jewish ra<Je the child has been considered the rock upon which the uuiverso vests." His explanation for the fact that infant mortality among Jews is usually half of that of the general population, and less than half of that of the poorer classes, was mainly that the Jewish mothers nurse their babies; the farming out of babies and the use of patent foods is practically unknown. He told also of the extensive work carried on for mothers and orphans among the people of the Jewish faith. The Jews were not the only people'at this meeting who boasted, and justly, about what they had done. The New Zealanders had a few kind words for themselves. Mothers iv New Zealand come wider the Pluuket nursing service, and. the New Zealand delegates said Sir Truby King should be rated with Pasteur as I a public benefactor.

Many of us remember when Truby King came to see us a little more than ten years ago. At that time he told us they had a baby death rato of fifty (that is 5 per cent.), and he left

us that as a mark to shoot at. < Well, many of us have hit that mark since T)r. King set us the task. But, the New Zealanders have not been '■ asleep at the switch" in the meantime. Their infantile morality .has fallen to oiily-3.9 per cent, and in Dunedin not a single baby died from infantile diarrhoea in two successive years. Further, the babies are kept in almost perfect health, all over New Zealand. Not one baby death from diarrhoea, in the course of two years, leaves us still something to shoot at '