[Report 1909] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City.

  • Aberdeen (Scotland). City Council.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1909] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Table YIII.—Aberdeen.—Tuberculosis and Bottle-Feeding. Deaths from Tuberculosis, 1907 and 1908.* Phthisis. Tuberculous Meningitis. Abdominal Tuberculosis. Other Tuberculosis. All Tuberculosis. AGE. No. of Cases Investi- gated. Percentage Bottle-fed in Infancy. No. of Cases Investi- gated. Percentage Bottle-fed in Infancy. No. of Cases Investi- gated. Percentage Bottle-fed in Infancy. No. of Cases Investi- gated. Percentage Bottle-fed in Infancy. No. of Cases Investi- gated. Percentage Bottle-fed in Infancy. Y ears. 0-5 8 63 64 41 32 31 14 43 118 40 5-15 19 26 23 39 12 33 14 21 68 31 15-25 76 20 3 0 3 33 6 17 88 19 25-40 79 10 1 0 1 - 4 25 84 11 40-60 40 7 ... 7 29 47 11 60 + 8 0 ... 2 0 10 0 All 230 91 47 1 47 415 ’Includes only cases where definite information obtained as to feeding in infancy. dren dying under live years of age. Tlie milk is sterilised in only about one-half of bottle-fed children in the larger houses. It has also to be noted that I found in not a few instances the child had been bottle-fed merely because the mother was unable from weak health to undertake breast-feeding, and there was evidence in several cases that the mother’s weakness was due to tuberculosis. The mother was, therefore, as likely as the milk to infect the child. I personally visited a large proportion of the families in which a death from abdominal tuberculosis or tuberculous meningitis had occurred, and I found, on careful investigation, that in many instances tuberculous disease had been previously in the household, or that there was a family history of tubercle on the side of one or both parents. Thus, out of 34 cases of abdominal tuberculosis, the mother was either actually tuberculous or a tuberculous suspect in 24 cases, and the father in 5 other cases. I include among tuberculous suspects 15 mothers who were not declared consumptives but who each admitted that they suffered from chronic cough or winter cough—accompanied in 5 cases by a history of spitting of blood. In almost no family was there an absence of tuberculosis in the household or in the family history of the parents. Similarly, among 58 cases of tuberculous meningitis minutely investigated, I found that the mother was tuberculous or was a tuberculous suspect in 32 cases, and the father in 6 additional cases. In 2 cases the father as well as the mother was a tuberculous suspect. The great majority of the mothers believed to be tuberculous were not de- clared consumptives; but, in most cases, usually along with a family history of