RACE PRESERVATION. INFANT MORTALITY AND ITS CAUSES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2701, 20 December 1905, Page 31

RACE PRESERVATION. INFANT MORTALITY AND ITS CAUSES.

LECTURE BY DR TRUBY KIXG.

Dunedin cannot fairly be reproached with lack of interest in popular scientific lectures, especially in those instances in which no charge is made for admission. During the .last few months good audiences have listened to lectures on such subjects as coal tar, volcanic strata, and psychology. But in such matters as race-preservation and infant nutrition interest is not so keen, and Dr Truby King's lecture in the Victoria Hall on Monday nigh J . — probabiy the be&t, and certainly not the least instructive of our admirable lecent series — was bomOTnat sparsely attended. As to the actual audience there can be no suggestion of disparagement. It was highly intelligent, in the best scn«e representative, earnestly interested. But it was too small.

No purpose can be served by lecturing a community on its duty in this matter, at this stage. But certain facie must be established. Primarily, that Dr Truby King's lecture was not only of extraordinary importance, but also of great extraordinary interest. The population problem is a vital matter ; the preservation of infant life, the nutrition of the infant under the best attainable conditions — that is a vital part of the population problem. Indeed, while a man or a woman may, in special circumstances, be excused for having no children, there can be no real excus-e for the negligence or slaughter by indifference or culpable ignorance of innocents already born. That was realy Dr King's primary contention. If you have your children, give them a reasonable chance to live. It does not seem to be an unreasonable demand. It doe 3 not seem to conduce to the popularity of any such disturbers of our sloth as dare to voice it.

Dr King on that point: — "The subject cannot be called a popular one. It does not provoke any widespread interest. That fact, indeed, furnishes a convincing reason for my being here to-night. I speak with feelings of some suppressed . indignation. There are many other subjects which, it seems to me, are of infinitely less importance than this, but which arouse greater interest and attract much larger audiences. My reason for bringing the matter before you is that, as a community, we are doing a great injustice to ourselves and to the rising generation, in failing to recognise the necessity for studying the laws of Nature in certain directions where obedience to those laws is of paramount interest to the very existence of the race."

By way of introduction to his chief subject — the nutrition and treatment of infants — Dr King dealt at some length with the treatment and nutrition of plants and animals. He insists, of course, on the absolute necessity of air and light. He has been carrying on at Seacliff some extremely interesting experiments in potato culture. Departing altogether from the prevalent and mischievous system of storing seed potatoes in pits or heaped on cellar floors, he keeps his seed 1 on trays, through which air and light stream constantly. Such seed he has set in quantity this year, with strikingly successful results. Side by side with it he has set picked seed from Oamaru, stored by the ordinary method. In this case the results are glaringly less successful. He points out that the system he had adopted is not really his system at all : it was strongly recommended by a successful English cultivator at the time of the great and disastrous potato famine in Ireland, far back in last century. Dr King at this point expresses a discouraging conclusion '• It takes about 100 years for any such idea to filter to the human mind in such a way that it will be made practical use of throughout the world." Some such ideas have not filtered in a thousand years through the dense mass of prejudice and stupidity which overlaps the true soil of human comprehension ; but Dr King did not distress his hearers by stating the truth in its full extent. " Watch the intentions of Nature, and she will never go back on you," said Dr King. All history has established that truth through all time, but humanity as a whole is still zealously ignorant of it.

Dr King had much to say of so-called " foods "—foods that stunt and retard and damage when they do not immediately kill. One popular food he has conclusively proved the harmfulness and costliness of by conclusive experiments on pigs and calves. One infant food, so-called, he exposed last night to the point of derision. At the value of ordinary testimonials to such rubbishy mixtures he scoffs, with reason. " The facts show the folly of human testimony such as is usually received in regard to animal and infant food. It is absolutely and totally valueless, and worse than valueless. The statement of one man, whatever his intellectual quality, who has taken the trouble to observe and be correct, is worth more than the statement of a million people who have not taken that trouble." This opinion the audience applauded. There is some hope.

Dr King points out that special trouble is already taken in some instances to rear live stock and poultry by scientific methods. From the commercial standpoint it pays. Then, " surely," says he, " in all honour, and in all duty, we ought to pay as much attention to our own infants. If any mother is unfortunate enough not to bo able to nourish her own offspring, surply she should see that it is nourished with as much care as any man of sense would exercise with regard to his domestic animals." By illustration and experiment he showed the dancer of ordinary cows' milk in its natural state as a food for human influ°ncp. lie '"humanised"' cow's, milk in tho ni-i^n o of the audience, in order to show how simply and safely it may be done, lie showed tho valuelessness of mere fat as an indication of health in babies, illustrating his remarks by terrible facts and illustration of the condition of certain children up by Seaeliff — children who, as unwholesomely nourished infants, actually took prizes at baby shows. Altogether, it was a very timely and vividly interesting lecture. Incidentally, it was_a somewhat hitter commentary on our missionary zeal and our admired tendency to indiscriminate philanthropic enthusiasm. On this point it is neither discreet nor comfortable tc enlarge. Finally -

Dr. King: If only half-a-dozen earnest men and women would steadfastly unite to do something in this matter, which is fundamental lo the race, some good might result.

If any of you arc prepared to do so much, I am v lling to take my share of the responsibility My friend, Dr Alexander, has taken a keen interest in the subject, and I am sure that we could reckon on him to give his time, sympathy, and knowledge to tho benefit of the movement with entire unselfishness. Personally, I am out of Dunedin. I have no time to give individually to your babies. lam willing to do anything I can. With regard to forming a nucleus. Mrs King and I will be very glad to give £100 to start with. — (Applause.) Mr G. L. Denniston said ho could say a good deal on this subject, but the hour was late. He was sure that all of them — like himself — were exceedingly grateful to Dr Truby King for coming there and giving so interesting a lecture on so deeply interesting a subject, — (applause) — a lecture illustrated in so elaborate and painstaking a way. Our country, like all countries, was subject to great perils. One peril was the diminishing birth-rate, with which, for the moment, they had nothing to do. Another was the steady infant mortality, with which Dr King had dealt. They must all agree with him that aiiything any citizen could do to combat this immense evil was of the greatest moment to the country. He moved that the very hearty thanks of the meeting be accorded to Dr King. — (Applause.)

The Mayor of Dunedin (Mr Braithwaitc), who presided, seconded the motion. His experience was that children were to a large extent overfed. Mothers thought their babies needed something, stronger than milk. He told a lengthy story of the infantile experiences of his eldest child — Mrs Manson — now in London, who suffered under bread-and-milk, but on a return to a natural dietary recovered. — (Applause.) The vote of thanks -was carried- cordially.

Speaking to a reporter of the OtasfO Daily Times later, Dr King said: ily suggestion at the outset is that some organised effort ehould be made, to teach mothers, and remove these old stumbling blocks of prejudice and ignorance. That seems a comparatively easy thing. Is it? Ask a.ny medical man. You cannot lay too great stress on the- vital importance of this subject. It concerns the very continuance of the race. The very greatest issues are inextricably involved in it No, I don't think I have anything special to cay now more than. that. But you may, if you choose, point my general position by quoting a few words from my pamphlet on the subject. " Civilisation is tending everywhere to undermine huma,n.ity, and, as I have said elsewheire, we have no reason to be proud of the "fact that, apart from dairy calves (which we treat rather worse than our own offspring) there is no young creature in the world so ignorantly and cruelly nurtured as the average infant. There is no death rate in Nature arising from maternal neglect and improper feeding that can be compared with human infant mortality. In this colony alone _a generally-diffused knowledge and recognition of infant requirements and maternal duties would save to the community at least one life per diem, and would correspondingly increase the strength and vitality of the rcsfc of the risiilg generation. Statistics reveal the appalling fact that with, artificial rea-ring infant mortality may be as high as from five to thirty times the death rate of children nourished by their mothers. Yet careless bottle-feieding is still resorted to by the majority of women. In the face of such facts one could wish seriously that as Zangwill suggests, infants should be allowed the Di-ivilege of selecting their parents: then, as he says, ' When children begin to be fastidious about the families they are born into, parents will have t>o improve or die ciliildless.

. . . In their anxi-ety to be worthy of s-ekction by posterity, parents will rise to heights of health and holiness of which o\ir sick generation does not dream. If they do not, woe to them ! They will be remorselessly left to die without issue.' "