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The 1911 summer was exceptional, because of its length and of the number of dog days, according to a Century overview (1901-2000) of meteorological statistics for Belgium. An excess of 9,000 deaths were estimated for the year 1911 and they were precisely concentrated during the August and September months. The available causes-of death figures allow to identify the infants (less than one year of age) to be highly vulnerable to the digestive diseases usually observed during the hot summers: infant mortality due to gastroenteritis accounted for around 60% of the excess general mortality registered this year. Local medical reports mentioned local shortages in drink water due to the drought, but also shortages in good quality milk provisions due to an unexpectedly virulent aphthous fever affecting the stock farmings all over the country. Although an exceptional increase in infant deaths due to hot summer related diseases was observed, the Provincial Medical Reports did not mention any specific action undertaken to prevent or to lower the incidence of those highly lethal diseases in bottle fed infants. They all call upon the development of Child health clinics and of infant health educational conferences to mothers. The First World War and the food crisis brought about by the German occupation of the country gave rise to a rapid increase in the number of Child health clinics covering a large part of the country by the end of the War. As they succeed in preventing excess infant mortality during the War period, the system was institutionalised at the national level in 1919 with the creation of the Belgian Maternal and Child Health system called Oeuvre Nationale de l'Enfance (ONE).