The case for a Ministry of Health / by Fred Scott.

  • Scott, Fred
Date:
[1903]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The case for a Ministry of Health / by Fred Scott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and improvement, if as persistently pursued as it is in the cultiva- tion of inferior species, will be felt by their children and their children’s children. A slight development for the better in each generation implies progress hi a geometrical progression, which yields results in ’an indefinite time that if suddenly manifested would appear miraculous.” Very much to the point was an utterance of the late Professor Fawcett, as follows: “ It will therefore be well distinctly to appreciate what is implied in bringing into operation causes which will produce greater mortality; some definite idea may be formed on the subject by considering the results involved in the present high death-rate prevailing amongst the children of the poor. Assume that there are 1,000 of these children, that 500 of them die before the age of five, whereas if they were as well cared for as the children of more wealthy parents, only 200 of them would die before this age. The death, therefore, of 300 is to be traced to defects in our social and economic condi- tion. These children are literally slaughtered, and in a manner, moreover, which indicates prolonged suffering. But this is only a part, and perhaps the smaller part, of the mischief which is. done; the causes which produce this excessive mortality do not alone affect the children who die; all those who survive are also brought under the same blighting influence. Consequently, to all the struggle for existence becomes more severe, the more- weakly succumb ; even the stronger, who survive in passing through the trying ordeal, often contract the germs of future “““ •*» “ *•» ^ny cases undermined, lysical detonoratron ensues, and a whole people may thus become gradually stunted and enfeebled.”* } ■nerfllt PT imPOrlaCe °f the heaIth ««*>* Neemes Pauperism: Its Onuses and Remedies.”
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