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Show VIENNA DEATH RATE BECGfflts AimLiriG Condition of Children Even More Harrowing, Declares Authority on City's Desperate Plight Five years of famine bave resulted 1m greatly Increased mortality and morbidity In Vienna which before the war waa counted as one of the healthiest health-iest cities In Europe. Figure prepared by Dr. Gustave Bonn, bead of the Vienna Health Department, show that In 1918 the death rate was 15.3 per thousand. In 1018 the rate wns 22.5 per thousand, an Increase of more than 47 per cent Professor Hans Spel ef the University Uni-versity ef Vienna, says that "even more terrible than the molality statistics sta-tistics are those referring to the condition con-dition of children and their mothers. Owing to nnder-nourlshment few mothers moth-ers can nurse their babies, and the milk shortage' affects not only Infants, but all children In spite of al that has been dona to help. At Professor Clemens Plrquet's clinic in the university uni-versity some 54.S4B children were examined ex-amined In 1918. Only 4,637 of 'bese r about one-thirteenth were passed, as skin good, fat good; 23,609 were pale and thin, or very pale and very thin. "The health of these children shows most disquieting features. Skin disease, rachitis and Barlow's disease are rife. , "The chief medical officer of Vienna asks, 'What Is going to happen to these under-fed children, In whose bodies the germ of tuberculosis Is latent, when they reach the twenties, at which time It becomes active? " To combat these conditions the American Amer-ican Relief .Administration of which Herbert Hoover is chairman fed last winter In the city of Vienna soma 800,000 of the destitute and undernourished under-nourished children, supplylt.g them with a substantia meal of American food, served In a number of large kitchens opened foi that purpose. The conditions In Vienna are more or less typical of those In Poland and other countries of Central hnd Eastern Europe. Last year the Relief Administration Admin-istration was able to reach some 3,500,-000 3,500,-000 under-nourished children and this winter the program calls for the feeding feed-ing of a like nurater, but eight of the great charitable organizations of America bave united under the name of the European. Relief Council, of which Mr. Hoover Is the chairman. The child feeding task will be carried on not on'r by the American Relief Administration Ad-ministration but by the American Red Cross, the American Friends' Service Committee (Quakers), the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ In America, the Knights of .Columbus, the Y. M. O. A. and Y. W. C A. An appeal ap-peal for $33,000,000 has been made atod the organizations named bave joined In raising the '" J |
