[Report 1922] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council.
- Cumberland County Council
- Date:
- 1922
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1922] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![It is disappointing to find such a great increase in the Infant Mortality this year in the Adininistrativ'e County. In view of the fact that the rate of Infant Mortality throughout England and Wales is again lower this year even than last, it is evddent there must have been some special cause at work in this County to account for the increase. That special cause, I am afraid, is the distress due to unemployment with, as a consequence, insufficient food. In normal times the diet of a large section of trie com- munity is deficient in what are known as accessory food factors or Vitamines, but in times such as we are passing through this deficiency is more marked because the essential Vitamines are not present in the foods which circumstances compel many parents to feed themselves and their children on. The want of these accessory food factors is serious for any one, but it is most serious for growing children, and particularly serious for infants. All farmers know that they cannot expect and will not get strong abundant crops unless they provide the soil with suitable nourishment. In just the same way animals (in- cluding human beings) cannot produce strong healthy young unless the mother during the period of gestation is supplied with suitable nourishment. Hence the great importance of Ante-natal work. If seed is sown in soil which does not contain the proper nourishing ingredients in sufficient and suitable quantity, the result is that the seed either comes to nothing or the crop is stunted, small in quantity and quality, is in fact premature. Exactly the same thing is occurring in our midst to-day. Expectant mothers have not during the past year been pro- vided with food containing a sufficiency of the essential factors, with the result that we have to deplore a high infant mortality. The main causes of the infant mortality bear out this statement. An analysis shows that 42.1% of the total Infant deaths were attributable to Premature Birth, Con- genital Debility, Atro])hy and Marasmus and Diarrhcea](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29132836_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
