On infantile mortality, and the establishment of hospitals for sick children : read before the Dublin Obstetrical Society, January 8th, 1859 / by William Moore.

  • Moore, William, M.D.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On infantile mortality, and the establishment of hospitals for sick children : read before the Dublin Obstetrical Society, January 8th, 1859 / by William Moore. 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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    scarcely exceeds tlie number of deaths. For the months of December, January and February last, the difference of births over deaths has been only 24. There can be no stronger proof of the anomalous and temporary character of the social condition of this colony two or three years ago, or of its subsequent sanitary progress, steady indeed, but presenting lamentable results, than a glance at the tables of births and deaths. For six months of 1853, the deaths exceeded the births in the proportion of 2 to 1 ; in 1854, the proportion was reduced to less than 3 to 2 ; in 1855, the births predominated as 21 to 17. This improvement continued in 1856, until in 1857 we had only 70 deaths for 100 births. These figures prove rather the astonishing degradation of their previous sanitary condition, than the merit of their present social state. In the fourth year of progressive im- provement, the mortality is still greater than that which is recorded in the deadliest plagues. In a delightful climate, amid abundance of wealth, the children die more quickly and in greater numbers than in a land of pestilence and famine. Nor is this all, we know the wonderful renovating powers of nature ; we know how soon after a population has been deci- mated by any of the great scourges of our kind, it soon recovers its former numbers and its natural tone. But in the present case, it is the very source of supply that is threatened : it is the children—the men and women of the next generation—that disappear with sncli terrible rapidity. We do not speak of the grief which such bereavements occasion ; that country, no doubt, has its mothers to weep for their children, and refuse to be comforted, because they are not. How- ever, we are glad to learn that the medical profession in Australia, to which this question peculiarly belongs, is stirring itself in the matter. From the report on infant mortality in large cities, made by D. Meredith Reese, M. D., of New York, to