In 1856 the Rev. T. Giliarofski, gold-medalist and corresponding member of the Russian Geographical Society, published an inquiry into the frequency and causes of infant mortality in the province of Novgorod, the results of which are true to this day concerning the greater part of Central, Eastern and Northern Russia. Let those who believe that it is wise and merciful to subject women to hard work read the ghastly story. In the first place, the reverend author mentions the notorious fact that the statistics of illegitimate births in Russia, in which they are stated to be but one-thirtieth of all the births, are kept down by the great prevalence of certain practices, to which it is not necessary to make further allusion here than to say that they put to shame all the implications contained in Dr. Storer's erroneous pamphlet as to the habits of Massachusetts women. Next, the Russian priest states that the number of births is nearly the same in each month of the year, and that out of 10,000 children born, 5537 die during the month of their birth. Three out of four registered births in the months of July and August are deaths before the termination of those months severally. By the twelfth month death summons three-fourths, five-sevenths, or even six-sevenths, of the infants born in some districts of Novgorod. Now listen to the cause of this frightful waste of human life: "It is the great mortality in July and August that causes the terrible destruction of infant life in Russia. Those months are the months of harvest, when the peasant-women are forced by necessity to leave their newborn infants to be nursed by children four or five years old, or by old women whose hands can no longer grasp the reaping-hook. Fed on sour rye bread and cabbage- or mushroom-water, working as much as the men, having less sleep, keeping more religious fasts, the peasant-women are only exceptionally capable of rearing their children by the natural process."... "I have seen children not a year old left for twenty-four hours entirely alone, and in order that they should not die of hunger feeding-bottles were attached to their hands and feet." In other cases poultices of rye bread, oatmeal, curds, etc. are placed over the infants' mouths by the miserable mothers who are obliged to leave them to work in the fields. These poultices frequently choke or suffocate the child. Domestic animals invade the hut, and deprive the infant of even this wretched food. The cries of the child for sustenance produce internal distensions which result in hernia and other disorders of a like nature, which are very common in Russia. We shall see presently to what degree these sad marks of neglect affect the strength and physical capacity of those who survive such an infancy and become men.