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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    us to an opinion respecting the desirability of the measures advocated by social reformers with a view to diminishing the rate of infant mortality, but would help us to form a judgment as to the amount of success they may be expected to achieve under present conditions of society. The object of this paper is to direct the reader’s thoughts to some of the difficulties which arise in interpreting the evidence at present relied upon by medical inquirers. It is not within my power to remove or lessen these difficulties, but time spent in considering them will not be wasted. Paley, I think, remarked that it is often more troublesome to convince people that a difficulty exists than to show them how to remove it. Perhaps, if I can show that there really is a problem to be solved, some reader may succeed in discovering its solution. Common sense indicates two great sets of phenomena which are of importance in gauging the chance a child will have of living through one year of existence. The first set comprises the events which precede its birth; the second consists of the post-natal conditions to which it must be exposed. Let us briefly notice these in order : — (i) To begin with, we have the nexus of cause-groups sum¬ marised in common speech by such terms as innate characters, potential characters. We have also the effects which may indirectly be exerted upon the unborn child by the exposure of its mother to an unfavourable environment. For instance, if the mother be underfed or overworked, or both, the circum¬ stances might react unfavourably upon the embryo. We may include here cases of germinal or placental infection, such as syphilis or congenital tubercular disease. Passing now to (2), post-natal conditions, we have, as before, in the first place, the continued influence of innate factors, bone of the child’s bone and flesh of its flesh, we have also the indirect reaction of the maternal characteristics, made manifest perhaps in an inability to suckle the child owing to anatomical or physiological shortcomings. But in addition to these we have the direct action of the environment upon the child itself, t a factor which now becomes of striking and, upon superficial examination, overwhelming importance. A new-born child
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