do not escape scot-free, but bear scars which they may carry
to their graves, or which may even carry them to that bourne later.
Again, the actual percentage of the survivors who are marked in this
fashion is small, but such milliards of children are attacked every year
that, on the old familiar principle, "if you throw plenty of mud some of
it will stick," quite a serious number are more or less handicapped by
these remainders. For instance, quite a noticeable percentage of cases
of chronic eye troubles, particularly of the lids and conjunctiva, such
as "granulated" lids, styes, ulcers of the cornea, date from an attack
of measles or even whooping-cough. Many cases of nasal catarrh or
chronic throat trouble or bronchitis in children date from the same
source. A large group of chronic discharges from the ear and
perforations of the ear-drum are a direct after-result of scarlet fever;
and the frequency with which this disease causes serious disturbances of
the kidneys is almost a household word. Less definitely traceable, but
even more serious in their entirety, are the large group of chronic
depression of vigor, loss of appetite, various forms of indigestion and
of bowel trouble, which are left behind after the visitation of one of
these minor pests, particularly among the children of the poorer
classes, who are unable to obtain the highly nutritious, appetizing, and
delicately cooked foods which are so essential to the full recovery of
the little invalids.

One of the English commissions which was investigating the alleged
physical deterioration of city and town populations stumbled upon a
singularly interesting and significant fact in this connection, while
plotting the curves of the rate of growth of the children in a given
district in Scotland during a series of years. They were struck with the
fact that children born in certain years in the same families,
neighborhoods, and presumably the same circumstances, grew more rapidly
and had a lower death-rate than those born in other years; and that, on
the other hand, children born in other years fell almost as far below
the normal in their rate of growth. The only factor which they found to
coincide with these differences was that in the years in which those
children who made the slowest growth were born there had been unusually
heavy epidemics of children's diseases and a high mortality; while, on
the other hand, those years whose "crop" of children made the best
grow