OUR BABES AND THE UMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13673, 14 February 1908, Page 7

OUR BABES AND THE UMPIRE.

Sir,—t.should like to ask the indulgence of a little space to express a x tow of infant upbringing which i* not apparent On. the surface. The phrase* of commerce are clever and subtle, and real tones are obscured "in- the competition for the sale of patent food?-. Photography gives emphasis to literature, and infant-feeding is -being deftly* guided to a comparison of weight*, and a contrast between the fat babies end the lean. A "campaign, for the protection of .infant life naturally suggests.. the question: What are the dangers flitch threaten it? They are many and varied. Every influence— social, hygienic— shapes the lives' of the parent*, has a ready reflex on their children. These are beyond the.. scope of this letter, which will be limited to the Imperial side of infant-feed-ing. I hold a brief for Nature. The fee* quence of events which we term '' Nature " lias been so decked in 'miles that we have come to regard "Dame Nature" a? a kind and benovelent mother. So slie may appear to those -whose ways are in pleasant places, and who take a superficial view of life. There is a stern «id» to the character of the old dame; so stern, that in the mythology of the heathen it whs symbolised by gods and godesses who were very far from being kind. We, of tho medical profession, are daily in touch with this side of the universal mother. We have, with reverence, built an altar to her power, which we term the Vis Medicatrix Naturae. It, is remarkable that a traveller may journey from Capo Comorm to the Himalayas, from Pekin through Burma to Mandalay, and not meet a single infant fed in any oilier than the natural way. How is it that not more than 32 per cent, of the mothers of the nation in this Dominion are able so to feed their children for more than four months? Wo are told that it is an effect of modern civilisation. Baby often loses his teeth before he is able to walk. His mother asks why? and gets the same answer. Year after year, with a regularity which marks the seasons, we pay, the toll of infant life and suffering Five times as many infants. under one year old died last December in Auckland and it? suburbs as in the four years between one and five. Recent returns of the Registrar-General of England show that of 22,000 deaths" from diarrhoea, taking the country all over, 17,000 were under one year old. Dr. Newman, medical officer of health of Fins-bury, in his preface to " Infant Mortality,'' makes a plain statement: "Poverty is not alone responsible, for in many poor communities infant mortality is low. Housing and external environment alone do not cause it. for tinder some of the worst external conditions in the world tho evil is absent. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that this loss of infant life is in some, way intimately related to the social''life of the people." However wo disguise tho truth in apt phrases wo aro unable to stifle it. Dame Nature will frown, and t>o force us to realise our position and our duty to the tenant of the cradle.

This is an Imperial question, not second to any other in importance. While the general death rate is decreasing 1 , infant mortality is not decreasing. One-fourth of tho total deaths in England and Wales were of infanta ' under one year. Apart from tho point of view of vital statistics, there is an important consideration bound up it) that of the. artificial feeding of infants. T. plead for the threatened personality of tho nation—the personality that inspired Nelson to nail the colours to tho mast; that inspired Wolfe at Quebec, and sustained Gordon through the trials of an ordeal. Tho great; captains of tho world, from Alexander till to-day, were, not hottle-fod—tho great seers since Socrates, tho jnxtts who have sung since Homer, the martyrs- of science and of religion, wore not bottle-fed. These are qualities which cannot Iks put into a bottle,- however skilfully prepared, and it cannot be too clearly. proclaimed that, -while some methods of artificial feeding aro better than others, the artificial feeding of our babes will mean for us tho loss of our Empire.

I appeal to the mothers fa to is with them— gather from the traditions of the past hope for tho conclusions of tho future. There is that of purpose and of power in Dame Nature's food for tho infant which will always remain . supreme.. A. (subtle something which is her secret, and which will continue beyond the compass of chemio atoms. There is no room for pessimism here. The cynio may ask if out of all this chaos order can come; or, ,if the tram mels of civilisation will ever permit us to return to the simple and nattiraV'ilifo, whereby alone- we can secure the safety of our babes. The answer is at hand. In all our many errors, we know that knowledge grows, and that knowledge tells us in the plainest terms that our fate is in our own hands. "Back to the land may be a good cry for a community, but back to the breast is the.best cry for our infants and tho future of tho race." Robert Bedford.