Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker.

  • Sara Josephine Baker
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    males of military age. Adding losses sustained by other countries, he brings the total up to twenty millions. The people in Europe are told to ‘Make up for the terrible wastage of war by conserving all the young life possible’; that ‘The child should have a fair start in life and arrive at maturity physically fit to take his part in the heritage of the Empire’; ‘The nation needs men, more men, still more men, and the child is father to the man’; ‘The nation survives in its young.’ ” The experience of the United States in this regard is so recent as to be well known to everyone. Notwithstanding our extraordinary progress as a nation, little or no attention had been paid to child welfare until less than twenty years ago. Up to the time of our entry into the World War five states had recognized their responsibility in this regard by organizing divisions of child hygiene. Within five years after the termination of the war forty-three states had or¬ ganized similar divisions, and practically every city in the country, and many rural communities, had adopted similar programs. The two reasons for this remarkable progress in the United States are not difficult to find. First was the fact that as soon as the recent war started, the appeal from the belligerent countries was forcefully brought to the attention of every man and woman in this country. The neutrality of the United States forbade any direct assistance to the fighting forces other than that which fell within the limits of purely humanitarian aid. This latter first found ex¬ pression in the formation of various hospital and ambulance units and the activities of the several large national welfare organizations. A large number of our people were enlisted in the army of direct service, but a far larger number were called upon with the humanitarian appeal for aid for the countries which were suffering from invasion. One of the earliest of these appeals came from Belgium. It was based mainly upon the need of protection for the child life of that country. Later the same appeal came from France.
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