On the mortality of infants in foundling institutions, and generally, as influenced by the absence of breast milk / by C.H.F. Routh.

  • Routh, C. H. F. (Charles Henry Felix), 1822-1909.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the mortality of infants in foundling institutions, and generally, as influenced by the absence of breast milk / by C.H.F. Routh. 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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    in Paris, a long time in hospitals, is to expose them to much contagion. It is a bad feature to have nurses living at a great distance; and in the difficulty of procuring wet nurses,it is to he feared had selections are made, perhaps of diseased females, whose antecedents are not known. At Eheims the manage- ment is even worse. To keep many of these infants as long as seven days on unsuitable diet, and then to send them far up the country, where they may not be carefully looked after (since over these nurses there is no supervision exercised), must be very imprudent. In Lyons, however, the arrange- ments made appear to be praiseworthy; but even here ex- posure before reception in the hospital is not prevented. The first question which presents itself here is the follow- • ing:—Is there any common law observed in the mortality of these three institutions, and even in the same institutions in different years, which might lead us to determine a common cause in operation ? Can this cause, by which the march of mortality, its extent, the influence of age in these three hos- pitals are regulated, be detected. It was in the hope of deduc- ing this that I reduced the mortality of these three institutions to a scale of 1000 for the purpose of comparison. (See Table in opposite column.) But, although I annex the table for reference, my expectation in this respect has been belied ; whence I con- clude that the causes of this mortality are numerous, and vary so much in different institutions, and even in the same institutions at different times, that they require separate con- sideration. Some of these are doubtless endemic to particular institutions; others are often so peculiar and generally mis- apprehended, as to necessitate separate study. Writers have akeady specified many of these causes. A few of them have, however, been overlooked; and thus, although I may be guilty of compilation in some respects, I hope also to bring out some original points, the whole to be useful in a practical point of view. I. Usual Mortality of Children of Tender Age, distinguishing whether in Town or Country. First, I think most writers have forgotten in the outset to state what is the actual mortality of infants under ordinary circumstances. As this is essential for comparison, I shall begin by determining this mortality, espe- cially for early ages. Percentage of Mortality of Children from 0 to 1 year, and from 0 to 10 years, after Benoiston de Chdteauneuf and Quetelet, for all Europe. 0 to 1 year. 0 to 10 years. Switzerland . . . 19.109 .. 34.871 Holland . 19.642 36.214 Geneva . 19.507 39.329 Paris . . 21.287 52.511 Brussels . 21.30 42.97 Southern Netherlands . 22.49 .. 43.44