Infant mortality and its administrative control / by M. Greenwood, jun.

  • Major Greenwood
Date:
[1912]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Infant mortality and its administrative control / by M. Greenwood, jun. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    According to Malthus, 50 per cent, of all persons born in London died under the age of three years,1 while the average mortality for the first year of life was, in Sweden, 25 per cent. Period. 1730-49 1750-69 1770-89 1790-1809 1810-29 Percentage Deaths under 5 years. 74‘5 ' 63*0 5i*5 4i-3 31*8 As will be gathered from Table I., in our own times the rate of infant mortality is lower, but still very heavy in the most civilised countries. In the course of the last century public opinion respecting the subject of infant mortality has changed, under the influence of a variety of circumstances. In the first place the emotional aspect of child mortality has cer¬ tainly not become less prominent; again, the diminution in effective fertility which has been noticed in greater or less degree almost universally has given rise in some minds to anxiety regarding the future of civilisation, an anxiety which has led to inquiries as to whether the effects of a falling birth rate might not be neutralised by a reduction of the infant death rate. Lastly, the triumphs of hygiene over many zymotic and contagious diseases, together with improvements in the whole art of medicine and surgery, have seemed to open up prospects of a successful onslaught upon infant mortality. At the present time, the opinion current in influential quarters might, I think, be summarised as follows : — A certain number of deaths occurring in the first year of life are due to causes entirely beyond human control. Some children born with grave developmental anomalies of the circulatory or nervous systems are examples; some cases of premature birth are also instances. These cases, however, although absolutely numerous, form but an insignificant pro¬ portion of the whole number of infant deaths. The bulk of infant deaths are the result of bad feeding, bad housing, in- 1 For earlier times we have : (see “ Vital Statisticsby W. Farr, London, 1885, p. 195).
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