[Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Durham County Palatine / County Council.

  • Durham (England : County). Council.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Durham County Palatine / County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/224 (page 7)
    highest in the county, in Barnard Castle (118), and in the agricultural districts of Hartlepool, Barnard Castle, Weardale, and Darlington. The causes of the high infant mortality are discussed at some length in many of the district health reports, and are now generally recognised to be largely preventable. Improper feeding, clothing and want of care : overcrowding ; insanitary surroundings ; indifference on the part of the parents to the dangers of measles, whooping cough, and diarrhoea; early marriages and drink are all mentioned as contributing causes to the terrible mortality among our infant population, but the efforts to reduce it have so far met with but little success. Public interest has, however, been stimulated by the prominence given to the subject in the public press, and by the successful efforts such as those undertaken by the Mayor of Huddersfield, and in Prance, to reduce the mortality in particular districts. The Conference on Infant Mortality recently held in Condon should also have valuable results, especially in view of the sympathetic interest shown by the President of the Tocal Government Board. The new table issued to medical officers of health by the Cocal Government Board, and required to be filled up by them and included in their annual health reports, will also undoubtedly be of great value in enabling the actual mortality from all the chief infantile diseases to be accurately ascertained. That overcrowding and insanitary dwellings have much to do with the high infant death-rate in the industrial centres of this County is an undisputable fact, and as these evils are capable of being remedied, no efforts should be spared by sanitary authorities to cope with them. The teaching of domestic hygiene in our elementary schools is also recognised as ol the greatest importance, while in some of the health reports good results are stated to have followed the distribution by the Registrars, to those registering births, of leaflets giving simple directions as to the feeding and management of infants. Causes of high infant mortality. Means for its reduction