Introductory.—The protection of infant life is all the more necessary in view of the fact that it is during infancy that human beings are least able to withstand injurious external influences. The success of the campaign against excessive child mortality depends above all upon the success of our measures for infant-life protection. During intra-uterine life the relationship between the child and the mother is of such a kind that the legislator must protect the mother if he wishes to protect the child. The institutions described in the last chapter relate chiefly to the mother, and it is indirectly only that they redound to the advantage of the child. After birth the relationship between the child and its mother is a different one. The child is no longer a part of the mother’s body, but is obviously and unmistakably a separate human being, although for nine or ten months after birth (that is to say, for a period about equal in duration to the period of intra-uterine life) the child remains absolutely dependent on the mother. It is characteristic of all the mamma............