Our Babies

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 22 June 1917, Page 4

Our Babies

(By Hygeia). , Published under the auspices ef the Society for the Health of Women and Children. "It it wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipiee than to maintain en ambulance at the bottom." The following is continued from Dr and Mrs Truby King's account of how jabies had been faring in European Institutions when they wrote on the matter in Our Babies' colgma just before the war: Sacrifice of Babies in Europe. In the opening lines of his book on "Hospitalism," published in Berlin in 1913, Dr Ludwig Meyer says that, owing to the extraordinary mortality which took place in their institutions for infants, the German physicians came to the conclusion that it was practically impossible to keep babies alive in them. I have translated and summarised the following from Dr Meyer's preface :

Twenty-five years ago about 80 per cent of sucklings in our institutions died. In the infanta' department of the Charite, for instance, in the years 1874-1884, out of 4109 children under bix months 3209, or 78 per cent., died. From 1876-1899 the mortality in the first year of life of all sucklings who had come under care in the Berlin "Wuisenhaus" averaged 30 per cent. In 1899 the number of beds was raised from 19 to 24, with a yiew to

improving matters by ksepinf tht inx fanta longer in the institution. The mortality of the new year gave a gruesome answer to the new arrangement In 1899 42.5 per cent, died, and in 1900 49 per cent. died. The small number of 24 beds was actually responsible in one year for the death of 345 infants! Thia led to the reorganisation of the care of orphan babies, and an improvement took .lice.

Hjwever, even now the infantile ■ath-rate in the most up-to-date initution in Berlin is about 20 per at.

Hut for the amazing infantile death- *■ .s wh>ch are admitted to have pre*d in the in titutionß of the United tes and Western and Middle Europe r aders would have been unable to it the mortality record of the • it Moscow Foundling Hospital, as - >:rimunicated only last month by a •orrespondent to the Christehurch Press under the heading:—

God's Rake. Massacre of Innocents in Meteow. Moscow, MBrch 2, ISI4. "Th« Empress Alexandra Feody-

rovna, Moscow's Governor, Caunt L. ff. Mouravieff, and many other mighty 'arsons are deep in discussion of the

'Massacre of the Innocents.' This massacre (nothing like it has been aince Herod's day) is the terrible daughter of babies that goee on in ..loscow's Foundling Hospital. "Everyone in Moscow knows the Foundling Hospital—the ' Vospitatelni Dom'—a vast, white barrack-like house, probably the Empire's biggest building, which lies on the banks of the Moscow River. Nobody can help knowing it, for from it every day issue from 10 to 50 coffins of little children, who have done no one harm, except the harm of beiog born into the world. Since this charitable institution was f innded it has put nearly a million babies to death, and, despite 'science' and 'civilisation' and 'the progress of medicine,' it is more fatal to be put into it to-day than it was in the barbarous age of (its founder, Catherine the Great. For though in the first years of foundation 60 per cent, of the foundlings died before one year of life was finished, that is nothing to what happens now. Of the 119,470 foundlings brought into the 'dom' during the decade ending 1911, 90,859 were dead within a year.'' Last summer a member of the Moscow Municipal Assembly called the "Vospitatelni Dom" a "great lethal chamber; but somewhat expensive. If they must all be killed, why not kill them at once." This remark was

called forth by a newspaper report that of 207 children brought into the hospital during Easter week, 136 were dead before the end of Joly. Moscow wits call the big institution "Bozhys grablya," or "God's rake," for there is a proverb that "God rakes io every-

thing at the end"; and a baby sent to to the "dom" is almost as sure to be raked into the grave as is a sentenced man who already has the noose round his neck.

What About the Survivors? Does any child come unscathed through the ordeal of the Moscow Foundling Hospital? From what we have seen of other institutions with aigh infantile death-rates (either on this side or on the other side of the world), we can safely say that in such cases the survivors all tend to bear the cruel brand of rickets and other disabilities which they can never throw off. s'■'."■•

Contrast this picture with the typical, strong, rosy, bright, and happy babies as they go out of the Karitane Baby Hospital. Our nurses have indeed good reason to feel a deep satisfaction in the work they are doing. The above was written three years ago; but the further experience of dealing with sick or ailing babies at Karitane makes the contrast still more striking. As stated last week, the death-rate of babies admittted to Karitane Hospital in 1916 was only 4 per cent. Demand for More Karitane Hospitals. The natural result of the great success of the Plunket Society's Hospital at Dunedin is the desire to establish institutions on similar lines elsewhere. The Napier and Wanganui Branches took the lead, and now Chri6tchurch is about to make an appeil to the public for £lo,oo'o for the same purpose. With this end in view, the firßt week in July has been set aside at the instance of the Christchorch Plunket Society as a "Baby Week," in accord with Lloyd George'e scheme for England, and we wish the Christcburch Committee every success. The pub !ic now fully appreciate the great direct saving of lives of bab'ms admitted to the Karitane Hospital; brt. what we should like to impress on them is that infinitely more good accroes through the standing objectleßson ard through the facilities for education in Motherhood and Mothercraft afforded by such institutions. Almost every mother who is taught thoroughly ho.v to do the best for herself and her children influences dozens of other mothers in the same direction. Thus, gradually the whole community tends to become leavened, and a higher standard of health and efficiency is the natural result.