Here is a fairly typical case from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. A woman
of thirty-eight years had undergone thirteen pregnancies in seventeen
years. Of eleven live births and two premature stillbirths, only two
children were alive at the time of the government agent's visit. The
second to eighth, the eleventh and the thirteenth had died of bowel
trouble, at ages ranging from three weeks to four months. The only cause
of these deaths the mother could give was that "food did not agree with
them." She confessed quite frankly that she believed in feeding babies,
and gave them everything anybody told her to give them. She began to
give them at the age of one month, bread, potatoes, egg, crackers, etc.
For the last baby that died, this mother had bought a goat and gave its
milk to the baby; the goat got sick, but the mother continued to give
her baby its milk until the goat went dry. Moreover, she directed the
feeding of her daughter's baby until it died at the age of three months.
"On account of the many children she had had, the neighbors consider her
an authority on baby care."
Lest this case be considered too tragically ridiculous to be accepted
as typical, the reader may verify it with an almost interminable list of
similar cases.(1) Parental irresponsibility is significantly illustrated
in another case:
A mother who had four live births and two stillbirths in twelve years
lost all of her babies during their first year. She was so anxious that
at least one child should live that she consulted a physician concerning
the care of the last one.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42