INFANTILE MORTALITY AND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 439, 3 December 1930, Page 2

INFANTILE MORTALITY AND

“Some 20 years ago, while I was engaged in compiling statistics on infantile mortality in the whaling city of New Bedford, Massachusetts, said Mrs Catherine Gardner, of Boston, to a Southland Times reporter on Thursday “I came across the fact that New Zealand had the lowest infant mortalitv in the world. That immediately caught my interest. Later in the course of a woman’s suffrage campaign, my interest in New Zealand. grew. oui country is often quoted in the Unite States'for her enlightened sociological and political ideas- Her infant mortality rate is still the lowest in the world as is both her general death rate ami her tubercular mortality. On the other hand, New Zealand has the highest cancer mortality in the world and I wanted to know why. The reason I believe, is the enormous amount of meat that vou eat here, exceeding that eaten in anv other part of the worl ’ At an hotel'whore I stayed recently there were no fewer than 17 meats served, while the menu was composed almost entirely of acids. New Zealanders, too. should have better tooth than they do. The formation of teeth is ---omplished before birth and is therefore dependent vers’ largely on the food of the parent.”