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37
of the artificially-fed infants fed with improper food it is not
wonderful that their mortality is high. Things are no more
satisfactory when we consider the methods of feeding as contrasted
with the quality of food.
Out of the 325 artificially-fed infants 105, or 32 per cent.,
were fed by means of feeding-bottles fitted with an india-rubber
tube. Not only is it impossible to keep these bottles clean—the
tube defying the most scrupulous efforts at cleanliness—but the
facility with which these bottles can be placed in bed with the
babies is provocative of the most serious irregularity in feeding.
The bottle is the constant companion of infants thus fed, and the
baby's life consists of a perpetual disagreement with food which is
just as perpetually being fed to it by this ingenious instrument of
irresponsible motherhood.
With facts like these before us the 75 deaths ascribed to
marasmus, atrophy or starvation are not to be wondered at. 73 of
these deaths occurred in infants under one year of age and 30 were
investigated.
As might be expected, nearly 80 per cent. of the infants dying
from this condition were found to be artificially fed.
It was found that 56 per cent. of all the infants investigated
were taken out daily, and 40 per cent. occasionally, but of those
who died, the 4 per cent. never taken out rose to 21 per cent
after excluding infants who died within so short a time of their
birth as to justify their being kept indoors.
OVERLAYING.
There is one respect in which the hand fed infant is more
favoured than the nursling. It is in its improved chance of