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Show LITTLE ONES POORLY FED Woman Tells of Conditions Condi-tions In Chicago Stock Yard District Washington. Sept 14 Dr. Caroline G. Hedger of Chicago at the Fifteenth International congress of Hygiene and Demography today spoke ' on "the school children of the stock yards district." "It is a gray neighborhood the Chicago stock yards," said Dr. Hedger. Hedg-er. She presented tho substance of an Investigation carried on under the direction of the board of the University Univer-sity of Chicago, and showing that almost al-most fifty per cent of the children of the stock yards district showed material retardation in tho two schools in tho district from which the 200 pupils were studied. "In the region in which thoy live" she said, "tho smoko comes down In clouds and with It comes the smell of the fertilizer plants. This is not conductive to deep breathing or sound sleop, and the children impress one as lacking oxygen, round-shouldered, thin and drather pale. But the physical phy-sical findings, while alarming while viewing tho group as a whole, are distributed In such a way as to make one to suspect that all othor causes have more connection with the school retardation." Dr. Hedger presented statistics to show that childron were bad physically physi-cally In almost the direct proportion as they received insufficient food, had little room to live were forced to sleop in crowded beds, and had tho reflected worry from taxes and mortgages. mort-gages. "They have not the spirit .and tho norvous balance to make their grades" she said. "It the child gTows inactive, inac-tive, discontontod. becomes Idle and a criminal, is the child to blame?" tho speaker said, "or Is the smug citizen who lives on tho fat returns of stocks, whose money is made by the sweat and blood and deprivation of the industrial neighborhoods llko this?" Dr. C. AdolDhus Knopf, speaking on tho topic "Dental Hygiene for the r ""7 "".- Pupils of Public Schools," declared bad and decaj-ed teeth wero a disease of tho masses as much as tuberculosis, tubercu-losis, and as such must be combated particularly In children of school ago. After making nn estimate that at least three per cent of all of the children of school age of the United States wero tuborculous, and calling attention to the last report of the commissioner of education that there were 20.000.000 childron attending public schools In the country, Dr. Knopf declared there must be at least C00.000 tuberculous children In urgent need of open-air instruction. He quoted an estimate that the ner-atfe ner-atfe life of t' children who die annually from tuberculosis In the United States was about seven and one-half 3'ears Figuring the cost to tho parents and community at only $250,000 per annum, he said the financial fi-nancial loss thus represented was $75,000,000 and children have died before they have been ablo to gie any return to their parents or the community. |
