HEALTH
D., H. E. Dearholt, M.
Health By H. E. DEARHOLT, M.D Director, Health Instruction Bureau, University of Wisconsin Extension Division THE BABY'S BIRTHRIGHT THE BIRTH RATE of civilized countries is declining. This has...
...This has occasioned great concern to statesmen throughout the world...
...On the other hand, when the birth rate declines the death rate declines also...
...Nature is profligate...
...Knowledge that impure milk causes the greatest slaughter of infants ought to be sufficient to insure provision of clean milk...
...By the way, is the milk supply of your town good...
...A fish lays millions of eggs for each spawn that is hatched...
...As civilizations rise in intelligence and importance the people show an increasing concern with the welfare and protection of their younger generations...
...To make certain of perpetuating the species Nature has made allowances for many that may be killed off...
...KNOW...
...No better index of the patriotism of a people can be observed than the provision that is made to protect the lives of coming citizens, upon whom rests the future of the nation...
...Havelock Ellis in The Task of Social Hygiene has shown that throughout the world a high birth rate is accompanied by a high infant death rate...
...The instinct to protect the life of one's young increases as the species rises in the scale of creation...
...The lower a creature is in the scale of evolution the greater is its number of offspring...
...Of those hatched but an occasional infant fish reaches maturity...
...As there are gradations in the obligations of parenthood throughout the lower forms of animal life, so there are variations in the human species...
...The baby's birthright is the right to live...
...Health By H. E. DEARHOLT, M.D Director, Health Instruction Bureau, University of Wisconsin Extension Division THE BABY'S BIRTHRIGHT THE BIRTH RATE of civilized countries is declining...
...His remedy has not seemed to most students to be the best one...
...As man rises in civilization and social position he rises to a larger sense of responsibility to and has a greater affection for his offspring...
...At the same time Nature provided mankind with thinking brains and the ability to overcome conditions which are good enough for fish...
...To man alone is given an enduring affection for his offspring to strengthen his instinctive parental protection...
...To meet the situation, former President Roosevelt, you will recall, attempted to popularize large families...
...Even childless citizens desire the continued existence of the species...
...This includes their neighbors' children with their own...
...The season of greatest danger to the life and health of infants will soon be here...
...Individual parents should look to the safeguards of their infants' life and health...
...Guessing, with the stake a baby's life, is unworthy of superior human intelligence...
...Don't guess...
...All patriotic citizens should look to the community or collective safeguards of the community's infants...
...We do not need more babies, nearly so much as we need to save those we have...
...The ability to secure clean milk for your baby and mine, at least if we live in cities, depends upon an equal ability of our neighbor to secure clean milk for his baby...
Vol. 6 • May 1914 • No. 22
