PRESERVATION OF INFANT LIFE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 133, 7 June 1907, Page 3

PRESERVATION OF INFANT LIFE.

In the course of a lecture, given the other evening at Christchurch, on the above subject, Dr Truby King, of Seacliff, said: — "In England and on the Continent about 80 per cent of women do not— though only 10 P^. cent cannot— suckle their off-spring Our own statistics would not greatly ditter from these, the majority ot women bringing up their babies on the _ bottle. Ot babies that die during the first three months of life it is found m England that the mortality among the bottlefed is fifteen tiroes as great as among the breast-fed. Dr Armstrong, Health Officer for Sydney, recently reported to the Intercolonial Health Congress *m Adelaide that from the investigation of six hundred odd cases he had found the Sydney mortality to be thirty-seven times as great among the bottle-fed as among the breast-fed. At the Christchurch Refuge, and at the Samaritan Homo here, I find that almost no deaths, of babies occur., because it is required;or*the mothers that they shall breast-feed their babies for at least five months. Not only do_they not die but the health of the infants is obviously above the average of those in the general commuimty. Sir William Broadbent, M.D., speaking on infant mortality before the recent Commission at Home, said that for every baby that died from ill-feeding, etc a dozen are maimed for life. Herbert Spencer says:—'To tens of thousands that are killed, add hundreds of thousands tnat survive with feeble constitutions and millions that grow up with constitutions not so strong as they should be, and you will have some idea of the curse inflicted on their offspring by parents ignorant of the laws of life.' As evidence that breast-feeding is better, practically under all conditions, the experience of the siege of Paris njay be quoted. The general mortality; went up 100 per cent., the infant mortality went down 4u per cent., because, the women—having no cows' milk-retook to nourishing their babies from .their own breasts; and starved arid emaicated through they were, the human milk direct from a human being proved its' immeasurable superiority to the milk of the lower animal. The earlier experiences in England in connection with the Lancashire cotton famine had been similar, but the world is slow to move. It has been shown, too, that in sickness the mortality among artificiallyfed babies is fourfold that of the naturally-fed. From various causes a certain proportion of women cannot suckle i-.eir own offspring, and under these conditions it is the duty of women of society to see that the best substitute for human mills; is given. There is only one artificial food worth serious consideration in this connection —viz., humanised milk—in other words, cows' milk so prepared as to approach as near as possible to mother's milk."

The lecturer mentioned that the infant mortality at Auckland was the highest in the colony, and at Dunedin it was the lowest of any of the chief cities. That was due to the latitude, as disease organisms grow faster in warm temperatures. The superior physique of the Jewish children as compared with Gentile -children, whom they have been proved to outstrip in height, weight, and vitality, was largely due to the fact that it was enjoined upoii their nfethers as a religious duty to suckle their infants. In this matter Jewish mothers were doing their duty and Christian mothers were not—(Applause). Advertised infant foods should never be employed for young babies: they were all superheated in the process of preparation and often caused the disease of scurvy rickets. When the children were older these patent foods were not a whit better for them than such simple things as rusks or toast. An enormous amount of misery was caused by artificial foods for babies, and to continue using them when their nature was known was the greatest cruelty—(Applause.)