But the really remarkable work in the reduction of the death-rate
within the last few years has been done among the children. It is here
that the war worth waging has been carried on most effectively. If, as
Ellen Key says, this is the century of the child, New York proved it
in its first decade by concentrating the health battalions on infant
mortality.
“A baby that comes into the world has less chance to live one week than
an old man of ninety, and less chance to live a year than a man of
eighty,” Bergeron, the French authority on children’s diseases, said
ten years ago. Within five years those chances have been increased by
a third in New York. In 1911, throughout the United States one death
in every five was that of a child under one year of age, while in New
York only one death in every eight was that of a child under one year
of age. Yet five years before that time New York’s average of infant
mortality had been equal to that of the rest of the country. And in
1912 the infant mortality was further decreased by six per cent., a
greater decrease than that of any other city.
[Illustration: Drawn by Jay Hambidge. Half-tone plate engraved by H. C.
Merrill