Statistical analysis of infant mortality and its causes in the United Kingdom / by Helen M. Blagg.

  • Blagg, Helen M.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Statistical analysis of infant mortality and its causes in the United Kingdom / by Helen M. Blagg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INFANT MORTALITY. INTRODUCTION : THE FACTS. (See Tables I. to VI. and X. and XI.) The high rate of mortality among children before they reach the age of one year is one of the most complex and difficult of modern social problems. And, like many problems, the more deeply it is studied, the more difficult it seems of solution. The facts and statistics refuse to arrange them- selves in an orderly manner, and the student is forced to the conclusion that there is not one cause for the death of these infants, or even two or three, but a large number, and that these causes are interdependent on each other. The facts themselves, however, are fairly simple. Though the death-rate in England and Wales has steadily gone down from 21'6 per 1,000 living persons in 1861 to 147 in 1908, and even in the seventy-six largest towns was only 15*8 in 1908, yet the^death-rate of infants under one year per 1,000 births, which was 153 in 1861 (or an average of 154 from j[86xfo iHydY. was still 132 in 1906, 118 in 1907, and I2iin 1908 for England and Wales (or an average of 133 from 1901 to 1908), and in the seventy-six largest towns was 128 per 1,000 births in 1908. Figures and comparisons will be found in the tables sub- joined. In Table I. is shown the progress throughout the country of the general death-rate and the infant mortality rate. It will be seen that both have diminished, but that, while the general death-rate has diminished steadily and very considerably, the lessening of the infant mortality rate has I.M. B