wet-nurse industry flourishes so greatly that nearly
all the
children are brought up by hand, it has been found
that the
percentage of rejected conscripts is nearly double
that for
France generally. Corresponding results have been
found by
Friedjung in a large German athletic association.
Among 155
members, 65 per cent. were found on inquiry to have
been
breast-fed as infants (for an average of six
months); but among
the best athletes the percentage of breast-fed rose
to 72 per
cent. (for an average period of nine or ten months),
while for
the group of 56 who stood lowest in athletic power
the percentage
of breast-fed fell to 57 (for an average of only
three months).
The advantages for an infant of being suckled by its
mother are
greater than can be accounted for by the mere fact
of being
suckled rather than hand-fed. This has been shown by
Vitrey (_De
la Mortalité Infantile_, Thèse de Lyon, 1907), who
found from the
statistics of the Hôtel-Dieu at Lyons, that infants
suckled by
their mothers have a mortality of only 12 per cent.,
but if
suckled by strangers, the mortality rises to 33 per
cent. It may
be added that, while suckling is essential to the
complete
well-being of the child, it is highly desirable for
the sake of
the mother's health also. (Some important statistics
are
summarized in a paper on "Infantile Mortality" in _British
Medical Journal_, Nov. 2, 1907), while the various
aspects of
suckling have been thoroughly discussed by
Bollinger, "Ueber
Säuglings-Sterblichkeit und die Erbliche
functionelle Atrophie
der menschlichen Milchdrüse" (_Correspondenzblatt Deutschen
Gesellschaft Anthropologie_, Oct., 1899).
It appears that in Sweden, in the middle of the
eighteenth
century, it was a punishable offense for a woman to
give her baby
the bottle when she was able to suckle it. In recent
years Prof.
Anton von Menger, of Vienna, has argued (in his
_Burgerliche
Recht und die Besitzlosen Klassen_) that the future
generation
has the right to make this claim, and he proposes
that every
mother shall be legally bound to suckle her child
unless her
inability to do so has been certified by a
physician. E.A.
Schroeder (_Das Recht in der Geschlechtlichen
Ordnung_, 1893, p.
346) also argued that a mother should be legally
bound to suckle
her infant for at least nine months, unless solid
grounds could
be shown to the contrary, and this demand, which
seems reasonable
and natural, since it is a mother's privilege as
well as her duty
to suckle her infant when able to do so, has been
insistently
made by others also. It has been supported from the
legal side by
Weinberg (_Mutterschutz_, Sept., 1907). In France
the Loi Roussel
forbids a woman to act as a wet-nurse until her
child is seven
months old, and this has had an excellent effect in
lowering
infantile mortality (A. Allée, _Puériculture et la
Loi Roussel_,
Thèse de Paris, 1908). In some parts of Germany
manufacturers are
compelled to set up a suckling-room in the factory,
where mothers
can give the breast to the child in the intervals of
work. The
control and upkeep of these rooms, with provision of
doctors and
nurses, is undertaken by the municipality (_Sexual-
Probleme_,
Sept., 1908, p. 573).
As things are to-day in modern industrial countries the righting of these
wrongs cannot be left to Nature, that is, to the
ignorant and untrained
impulses of persons who live in a whirl of artificial
life where the voice
of instinct is drowned. The mother, we are accustomed to think, may be
trusted to see to the welfare of her child, and it is
unnecessary, or even
"immoral," to come to her assistance. Yet there are few things, I think,
more pathetic than the sight of a young Lancashire
mother who works in the
mills, when she has to stay at home to nurse her sick
child. She is used
to rise before day-break to go to the mill; she has
scarcely seen her
child by the light of the sun, she knows nothing of its necessities, the
hands that are so skilful to catch the loom cannot
soothe the child. The
mother gazes down at it in vague, awkward, speechless
misery. It is not a
sight one can ever forget.
It is France that is taking the lead in the initiation of the scientific
and practical movements for the care of the young child before and after
birth, and it is in France that we may find the germs of nearly all the
methods now becoming adopted for arresting infantile
mortality. The
village system of Villiers-le-Duc, near Dijon in the
Côte d'Or, has proved
a germ of this fruitful kind. Here every pregnant woman not able to secure
the right conditions for her own life and that of the
child she is
bearing, is able to claim the assistance of the village authorities; she
is entitled, without payment, to the attendance of a
doctor and midwife
and to one franc a day during her confinement. The
measures adopted in
this village have practically abolished both maternal
and infantile
mortality. A few years ago Dr. Samson Moore, the medical officer of health
for Huddersfield, heard of this village, and Mr.
Benjamin Broadbent, the
Mayor of Huddersfield, visited Villiers-le-Duc. It was resolved to
initiate in Huddersfield a movement for combating infant mortality.
Henceforth arose what is known as the Huddersfield
scheme, a scheme which
has been fruitful in splendid results. The points of the Huddersfield
scheme are: (1) compulsory notification of births within forty-eight
hours; (2) the appointment of lady assistant medical
officers of help to
visit the home, inquire, advise, and assist; (3) the
organized aid of
voluntary lady workers in subordination to the municipal part of the
scheme; (4) appeal to the medical officer of help when the baby, not being
under medical care, fails to thrive. The infantile
mortality of
Huddersfield has been very greatly reduced by this
scheme.[16]
The Huddersfield scheme may be said to be the origin
of the
English Notification of Births Act, which came into
operation in
1908. This Act represents, in England, the national
inauguration
of a scheme for the betterment of the race, the
ultimate results
of which it is impossible to foresee. When this Act
comes into
universal action every baby of the land will be
entitled--legally
and not by individual caprice or philanthropic
condescension--to
medical attention from the day of birth, and every
mother will
have at hand the counsel of an educated woman in
touch with the
municipal authorities. There could be no greater
triumph for
medical science, for national efficiency, and the
cause of
humanity generally. Even on the lower financial
plane, it is easy
to see that an enormous saving of public and private
money will
thus be effected. The Act is adoptive, and not
compulsory. This
was a wise precaution, for an Act of this kind
cannot be
effectual unless it is carried out thoroughly by the
community
adopting it, and it will not be adopted until a
community has
clearly realized its advantages and the methods of
attaining
them.
An important adjunct of this organization is the
School for
Mothers. Such schools, which are now beginning to
spring up
everywhere, may be said to have their origins in the
_Consultations de Nourrissons_ (with their offshoot
the _Goutte
de Lait_), established by Professor Budin in 1892,
which have
spread all over France and been widely influential
for good. At
the _Consultations_ infants are examined and weighed
weekly, and
the mothers advised and encouraged to suckle their
children. The
_Gouttes_ are practically milk dispensaries where
infants for
whom breast-feeding is impossible are fed with milk
under medical
supervision. Schools for Mothers represent an
enlargement of the
same scheme, covering a variety of subjects which it
is necessary
for a mother to know. Some of the first of these
schools were
established at Bonn, at the Bavarian town of
Weissenberg, and in
Ghent. At some of the Schools for Mothers, and
notably at Ghent
(described by Mrs. Bertrand Russell in the
_Nineteenth Century_,
1906), the important step has been taken of giving
training to
young girls from fourteen to eighteen; they receive
instruction
in infant anatomy and physiology, in the preparation
of
sterilized milk, in weighing children, in taking
temperatures and
making charts, in managing crêches, and after two
years are able
to earn a salary. In various parts of England,
schools for young
mothers and girls on these lines are now being
established, first
in London, under the auspices of Dr. F.J. Sykes,
Medical Officer
of Health for St. Pancreas (see, e.g., _A School For
Mothers_,
1908, describing an establishment of this kind at
Somers Town,
with a preface by Sir Thomas Barlow; an account of
recent
attempts to improve the care of infants in London
will also be
found in the _Lancet_, Sept. 26, 1908). It may be
added that some
English municipalities have established depôts for
supplying
mothers cheaply with good milk. Such depôts are,
however, likely
to be more mischievous than beneficial if they
promote the
substitution of hand-feeding for suckling. They
should never be
established except in connection with Schools for
Mothers, where
an educational influence may be exerted, and no
mother should be
supplied with milk unless she presents a medical
certificate
showing that she is unable to nourish her child
(Byers, "Medical
Women and Public Health Questions," _British Medical Journal_,
Oct. 6, 1906). It is noteworthy that in England the
local
authorities will shortly be empowered by law to
establish Schools
for Mothers.
The great benefits produced by these institutions in
France, both
in diminishing the infant mortality and in promoting
the
education of mothers and their pride and interest in
their
children, have been set forth in two Paris theses by
G. Chaignon
(_Organisation des Consultations de Nourrissons à la
Campagne_,
1908), and Alcide Alexandre (_Consultation de
Nourrissons et
Goutte de Lait d'Arques_, 1908).
The movement is now spreading throughout Europe, and
an
International Union has been formed, including all
the
institutions specially founded for the protection of
child life
and the promotion of puericulture. The permanent
committee is in
Brussels, and a Congress of Infant Protection
(_Goutte de Lait_)
is held every two years.
It will be seen that all the movements now being set in action for the
improvement of the race through the child and the
child's mother,
recognize the intimacy of the relation between the
mother and her child
and are designed to aid her, even if necessary by the
exercise of some
pressure, in performing her natural functions in
relation to her child. To
the theoretical philanthropist, eager to reform the
world on paper,
nothing seems simpler than to cure the present evils of child-rearing by
setting up State nurseries which are at once to relieve mothers of
everything connected with the production of the men of the future beyond
the pleasure--if such it happens to be--of conceiving
them and the trouble
of bearing them, and at the same time to rear them up
independently of the
home, in a wholesome, economical, and scientific
manner.[17] Nothing seems
simpler, but from the fundamental psychological
standpoint nothing is
falser. The idea of a State which is outside the
community is but a
survival in another form of that antiquated notion which compelled Louis
XIV to declare "L'Etat c'est moi!" A State which admits that the
individuals composing it are incompetent to perform
their own most sacred
and intimate functions, and takes upon itself to perform them instead,
attempts a task which would be undesirable, even if it were possible of
achievement. It must always be remembered that a State which proposes to
relieve its constituent members of their natural
functions and
responsibilities attempts something quite different from the State which
seeks to aid its members to fulfil their own biological and social
functions more adequately. A State which enables its
mothers to rest when
they are child-bearing is engaged in a reasonable task; a State which
takes over its mothers' children is reducing
philanthropy to absurdity. It
is easy to realize this if we consider the inevitable
course of
circumstances under a system of "State-nurseries." The child would be
removed from its natural mother at the earliest age, but some one has to
perform the mother's duties; the substitute must
therefore be properly
trained for such duties; and in exercising them under
favorable
circumstances a maternal relationship is developed
between the child and
the "mother," who doubtless possesses natural maternal instincts but has
no natural maternal bond to the child she is mothering.
Such a
relationship tends to become on both sides practically and emotionally the
real relationship. We very often have opportunity of
seeing how
unsatisfactory such a relationship becomes. The
artificial mother is
deprived of a child she had begun to feel her own; the child's emotional
relationships are upset, split and distorted; the real mother has the
bitterness of feeling that for her child she is not the real mother. Would
it not have been much better for all if the State had
encouraged the vast
army of women it had trained for the position of
mothering other women's
children, to have, instead, children of their own? The women who are
incapable of mothering their own children could then be trained to refrain
from bearing them.
Ellen Key (in her _Century of the Child_, and
elsewhere) has
advocated for all young women a year of compulsory
"service,"
analogous to the compulsory military service imposed
in most
countries on young men. During this period the girl
would be
trained in rational housekeeping, in the principles
of hygiene,
in the care of the sick, and especially in the care
of infants
and all that concerns the physical and psychic
development of
children. The principle of this proposal has since
been widely
accepted. Marie von Schmid (in her _Mutterdienst_,
1907) goes so
far as to advocate a general training of young women
in such
duties, carried on in a kind of enlarged and
improved midwifery
school. The service would last a year, and the young
woman would
then be for three years in the reserves, and liable
to be called
up for duty. There is certainly much to be said for
such a
proposal, considerably more than is to be said for
compulsory
military service. For while it is very doubtful
whether a man
will ever be called on to fight, most women are
liable to be
called on to exercise household duties or to look
after children,
whether for themselves or for other people.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is not, of course, always literally true that
each parent supplies
exactly half the heredity, for, as we see among animals generally, the
offspring may sometimes approach more nearly to one
parent, sometimes to
the other, while among plants, as De Vries and others
have shown, the
heredity may be still more unequally divided.
[2] It should scarcely be necessary to say that to
assert that motherhood
is a woman's supreme function is by no means to assert that her activities
should be confined to the home. That is an opinion which may now be
regarded as almost extinct even among those who most
glorify the function
of woman as mother. As Friedrich Naumann and others have very truly
pointed out, a woman is not adequately equipped to
fulfil her functions as
mother and trainer of children unless she has lived in the world and
exercised a vocation.
[3] "Were the capacities of the brain and the heart equal in the sexes,"
Lily Braun (_Die Frauenfrage_, page 207) well says, "the entry of women
into public life would be of no value to humanity, and would even lead to
a still wilder competition. Only the recognition that
the entire nature of
woman is different from that of man, that it signifies a new vivifying
principle in human life, makes the women's movement, in spite of the
misconception of its enemies and its friends, a social revolution" (see
also Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition,
1904, especially Ch.
XVIII).
[4] The word "puericulture" was invented by Dr. Caron in 1866 to signify
the culture of children after birth. It was Pinard, the distinguished
French obstetrician, who, in 1895, gave it a larger and truer significance
by applying it to include the culture of children before birth. It is now
defined as "the science which has for its end the search for the knowledge
relative to the reproduction, the preservation, and the amelioration of
the human race" (Péchin, _La Puériculture avant la Naissance_, Thèse de
Paris, 1908).
[5] In _La Grossesse_ (pp. 450 et seq.) Bouchacourt has discussed the
problems of puericulture at some length.
[6] The importance of antenatal puericulture was fully recognized in China
a thousand years ago. Thus Madame Cheng wrote at that
time concerning the
education of the child: "Even before birth his education may begin; and,
therefore, the prospective mother of old, when lying
down, lay straight;
when sitting down, sat upright; and when standing, stood erect. She would
not taste strange flavors, nor have anything to do with spiritualism; if
her food were not cut straight she would not eat it, and if her mat were
not set straight, she would not sit upon it. She would not look at any
objectionable sight, nor listen to any objectionable
sound, nor utter any
rude word, nor handle any impure thing. At night she
studied some
canonical work, by day she occupied herself with
ceremonies and music.
Therefore, her sons were upright and eminent for their talents and
virtues; such was the result of antenatal training"
(H.A. Giles, "Woman in
Chinese Literature," _Nineteenth Century_, Nov., 1904).
[7] Max Bartels, "Isländischer Brauch," etc., _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, 1900, p. 65. A summary of the customs of
various peoples in
regard to pregnancy is given by Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, Sect. XXIX.
[8] On the influence of alcohol during pregnancy on the embryo, see, e.g.,
G. Newman, _Infant Mortality_, pp. 72-77. W.C. Sullivan (_Alcoholism_,
1906, Ch. XI), summarizes the evidence showing that
alcohol is a factor in
human degeneration.
[9] There is even reason to believe that the alcoholism of the mother's
father may impair her ability as a mother. Bunge (_Die Zunehmende
Unfähigkeit der Frauen ihre Kinder zu Stillen_, fifth
edition, 1907), from
an investigation extending over 2,000 families, finds
that chronic
alcoholic poisoning in the father is the chief cause of the daughter's
inability to suckle, this inability not usually being
recovered in
subsequent generations. Bunge has, however, been opposed by Dr. Agnes
Bluhm, "Die Stillungsnot," _Zeitschrift für Soziale Medizin_, 1908 (fully
summarized by herself in _Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1909).
[10] See, e.g., T. Arthur Helme, "The Unborn Child,"
_British Medical
Journal_, Aug. 24, 1907. Nutrition should, of course, be adequate. Noel
Paton has shown (_Lancet_, July 4, 1903) that defective nutrition of the
pregnant woman diminishes the weight of the offspring.
[11] Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, p. 277. And from the
Protestant side see
Northcote (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, Ch. IX), who permits sexual
intercourse during pregnancy.
[12] See Appendix A to the third volume of these
_Studies_; also Ploss and
Bartels, loc. cit.
[13] Thus one lady writes: "I have only had one child, but I may say that
during pregnancy the desire for union was much stronger, for the whole
time, than at any other period." Bouchacourt (_La Grossesse_, pp. 180-183)
states that, as a rule, sexual desire is not diminished by pregnancy, and
is occasionally increased.
[14] This "inconven