[Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Chatham Borough.
- Chatham (Kent, England). Borough Council.
- Date:
- 1905
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Chatham Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.
8/62 page 6
![A study of Table V. which deals with the causes of Infantile Mortality—the term Infant meaning a child under 12 months of age — reveals the striking fact that by far the largest proportion of deaths are due to what I may call defective power of assimilation. Premature birth which accounts for 30 deaths, spells defective vitality in all such infants, whilst Diarrhoea, Enteritis, Gastric Catarrh, Atrophy, Debility, and Marasmus—all mean that in the majority of instances the digestive organs have proved incapable of assimilating the improperly prepared food with which they have been unfairly taxed. People who are not familiar with the habits of the poor, can hardly realise how ignorant and careless they are in all matters relating to health, and that this ignorance and carelessness are responsible for much disease and many deaths is an inconvertible truth, made much more prominent by the fact that occasionally one comes across parents living under precisely similar conditions to their neighbours, but who by dint of common sense and careful management succeed in rearing up their families without sacri- ficing victim after victim to a senseless idolatory of dirt, want of ventilation, and improper feeding. The heavy death toll is not the extent of the evil, because many children survive in spite of the obstacles which beset them, but they grow up stunted in stature, and enfeebled in body and mind. Physical deterioration, about which much is heard now-a-days is a real fact, and it is of national importance that it should be checked. It is not too much to say that the root of this physical deterioration is the improper feeding and neglect of children in their earliest years, killing many, and doing irreparable mischief to a large ])roportion of the survivors. Infants always will show a iiigher mortality than older persons, because their natural power of resistance is less, but the present rates of mortality in all towns are higher than they ought to be, and this high mortality amongst children is a sure sign that some- thing is wrong. Briefly, the chief causes leading to the lowered vitality of town populations are—tlie tendency to aggregate into towns—which leads to an increase in the value of land, and to an increase in the rents of houses, with the result that overcrowding prevails, and people are bred up in streets and courts, where the outside atmosphere is only a degree less foul than that of the interior of tlie houses. xVuyone frequenting the localities in question cannot fail to be struck by the large amount of unemployed leisure which these people seem to have, the utter absence of healthy reci'eation, and the constant presence of intemperance. The practice of hygiene amongst the well to do classes is as marked as its neglect amongst the lower classes, although the gospel of health is preached, and practised daily before their eyes by every Sanitary Authority in the Kingdom. If these modern social tendencies cannot be stopped, they may be guided, and, as I have said above, the most likely remedy lies in the education of the children. If the home will not teach, the school must, and if the laws of health and temperance, and the preventable character of much illness, and its dependence on dill, inefficient ventilation, and improper food, be impressed upon them](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29098865_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
