Excerpt from The Journal of the American Medical Association, 1886, Vol. 7: Containing the Official Record of Its Proceedings, and the Reports and Papers Presented in the Several Sections The report contains much valuable information, but as our paper is only to show that the diseases of children which are attended with the greatest fatality are being brought under such sanitary conditions as tend to lessen the mortality, we will follow it no further. If we accept the estimate of statisticians of the actual cash value of each male and female who live to attain adolescence at one thousand dollars, then add to this financial value the intellectual worth of hundreds of thousands of children who perish annu ally from infectious diseases - that are in the main preventable - we have but a faint conception of the vast loss the world sustains by this fearful mortality. In view of all this, humanity is ready to bow at the footstool of science, and beg that the ratio between those who live and those who die at the tender age be diminished, and that they have thrown around them the protecting care of hygienic medicine. The progress of science in none of its departments has ever reached the highest degree of perfection by steady, monotonous and gradual advancement. For long it has appeared to be so, until some fortunate individual, endowed with rare genius, utilizing the knowledge gained from all sources, has evolved from the womb of time some hidden truth which in a. Brief period has effected more than years of patient toil, and marked his epoch as an era, sending his name across the empyrean of thought like a meteor flashing across the heavens, winning for science incalculable benefits, and for himself glory and renown. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.