Volume 2

An appeal to the public in behalf of a hospital for sick children.

  • Great Ormond Street Hospital
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An appeal to the public in behalf of a hospital for sick children. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    AN APPEAL, &c. It appears from the last Report of the Registrar-General, that out of nearly 50,000 persons who died in the Metropolis in the year 1846, more than 15,000 had not attained the age of two, and more than 21,000 had not attained the age of ten years. An equally striking illustration of the high rate of mortality in early life is furnished by the statement of the same authority, that of 100 persons born in London, 24 die during the first two years of life, and nearly 11 more during the eight succeeding years ; so that 35 per cent., or more than a third of the whole population of this city are cut off during infancy and childhood. It is no longer necessary to urge the importance of such facts as these upon the attention of the public, for the evils, of which they are the expression, have now for some time engaged alike the cares of government, the investigations of science, and the efforts of philanthropy. Their combined endeavours have already effected an amount of good which it would be impossible to estimate with accuracy, though an increase of nearly seven years in the average duration of life in the present, as compared with the past century, may be appealed to as some proof of its reality. This result, however, will appear as little else than an earnest of what may be hoped for from more continued and better directed exertion, if we bear in mind that it is chiefly during the period of manhood, or else in the first year of infancy, that this diminution in the rate of mortality has been effected, and that the proportion of-
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