Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1914. CHILD REGENERATION.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13395, 1 June 1914, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1914. CHILD REGENERATION.

An important Health Gonfercnue was held mi London last week, under the auspices of the Victoria League, at which papers by various authorities and enthusiasts on tho subject were read, showing what is being done m Australia and New Zealund for the '.preservation of infant life. It was a splendid opportunity of extending tho magnificent work which has been done m this quarter of the globe to the Homeland, where alas, there is all "too much need for pome such vigorous movement as has been instituted m this country by the Society for the Promotion of tho Health of Women and Children. Dr. Tmby King, who has just returned from the Old Country, and who was one of the authors of a paper i-ead at the Health Confei'ence -above referred to, lias brought a sorrowful ♦*!*» of the conditions as affecting infant life m Great Britain. TKree hundred .and /seventysix babies die every day m England, and Wales, arid of that terrible total quite half, it is computed by men competent to speak with authority, dio frojn preventable causes. These young livea are practically "flung back, m tho face of God." Dr. King backs Jiis -words with pictures of conditions >m slum areas only a stone-throw from tho pageantry of Hyde Park and Regent street and the Street of Skill— Harley street, the Haunt of the most famous physicians-r---and lie quotes, official statistics showing the rates of infantile . mortality at different periods m the centresr of civilisation. So : Vienna 17 per cent, Berlin lb per cent, Liverpool 13£ ;W —"' London 13i(ll* I.sth m 1912), an-l Rtoc 1 -- Eolm and Christiana 8% r Compared with these, Dunedin, it is pleasing, to observe, shows a steadily decreasing rate from 1907 to 1912-13— from 8 per cent to 3 4-sth per cent. New South Wales, thanks to Iho^ magnificent Avork instituted by Sir ChnYles : '."\icKollaiv has rctliiced its infant mortality froni 17.4 m 1884 to 6.95 per hundred. In addition to the deplorable sacrifice of a quarter of a million infants yearly m tho Homeland there 1 is a huge percentage of cluklren who are permanently damaged for life through " disease. Many babies arty to use Dr. Truby King's vigorous phrase "cursed with ignorance and neglect." Dr.- King spent four mouths .investigating the slums of Bethrial Green and Marylebone, t arid his photographs show heart-breaking types of sickly children, undeveloped, misshapen, "damned from the beginning." Well may "New Zealand think, earnestly of tho danger of permitting slums, andslum conditions m her cities arid towns and take all possible steps to prevent such conditions Arising.. Well may we support tho splendid \vork,that is being carried out m verkroa 'centres m this Dominion by tho Plunket riurses, \yho go about from home, to home instructing mothers m matters of liygiene and the liealthy ; upbringing of babies. Parental ignorance and prejudice are being gradually broken • down aiid rational and scientific methods of cliild culture in-, traduced, as a result of which we shall havo a much more healtlu' and Vigorous type of young: New Zealanders even than we have had m the past, and there will be no -fear of a reproduction of old conditions m this fair young land. It is surely, as . Dr.. Trjiby King says, Ihe ina-lienable right of eyei-y child to be born healthy, to be nurtured with simple sufficiency, to be educated wisely,

to bo made fit for the struggle of life and the fulfilment of the highest purpose of manhood and womanhood. Whilst there is still a shocking waste of child life, especially amongst illegitimate children, it is gratifying to learn that surely and swiftly a vast and revolutionary change is coming over civilised governments as well as over individual men and women. It is now recognised very wisely that it is really worth while to see that a child is not cursed from its birth to a painful life of physical degeneracy but that it should be given a chance. There is increasing interest m the press, the pulpit, m scientific, social, and political ch-cles m the subject "of eugenics, and it is gratifying to know that tlu' work which has been done m this Dominion and Australia, particularly m New Soutli. Wales, is commanding attention at Home and giving inspiration to those who are m the forefront of the battle for the infants 'which if curried to a successful issue .will 'do much to regenerate England.