HUNS SHORT! ILK
Effect of Scarcity Upon Health
of Young Children Is Shown
by Death Rate,
Seattle Chicago N. Y.
SPECIAL SERVICE
By EDWIN L,. JAMES.
COBLENZ, Wednesday, Jan. 8.—By
far the most serious German food
shortage which can be observed from
here is the lack of milk for babies*
The effect of the scarcity of milk upon
the health of young- children is indicated in the mortality rate of infants
less than 5 years in Coblenz, where
American authorities have man an investigation. I give the figures a thousand deaths in past six years.
1913, 39 per cent; 1914, 50 per cent;
1915, 63 per cent: 1916, 1961 per cent;
1917, 50 per cent; 1918, 62 per cent.
Part of the 1918 increase was caused
by the influenza epidemic, but the
gradual growth of the infant mortality
rate is blamed upon the milk shortage.
War conditions have also affected
the birth rate in Coblenz as shown by
the following a ten thousand birth rate
in the last six years:
Nineteen hundred and thirteen, 217;
1914, 221; 1915, 207; 1916. 189: 1917, 148;
1918, 156. This shows a falling off of
30 percent in births.
Before the war there was a relatively small death rate from tuberculosis
in the Rhineland. This rate in Coblenz
has more than doubled in the last six
years a one thousand as the figures
show:
Nineteen hundred and thirteen, 12
per cent; 1914, 14 per cent; 1915, 14
per cent; 1916, 17 per cent; 1917, 25
per cent; 1918, 29 per cent.
Here are the figures for Coblenz a
10,000 deaths in the last six years:
Nineteen hundred and thirteen, 153;
1914, 204; 1915, .223; 1916, 221; 1917,
220; 1918, 291.
This measures an increase of almost
101 oer cent in six years, the 1918 in-
cr,. se being due partly to influenza,
(Copyright, 1919.)