On some aspects of infant mortality in New Haven during the five months ending Nov. 1, 1884 / by E.H. Jenkins.

  • Edward Hopkins Jenkins
Date:
[1885?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some aspects of infant mortality in New Haven during the five months ending Nov. 1, 1884 / by E.H. Jenkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    3/18 page 221
    Compliment:: of Infant Mortality in New Haven During the Five Months ending Nov. 1,1884 By E. H. Jenkins, Ph.D. Statistics of Infant Mortality have special interest and value, particularly in a study of the prevalence of zymotic diseases. The reasons are these: 1. Infants are more susceptible than adults to the attacks of such diseases and they have less power to resist and throw them off. 2. They are largely dependent on milk as an article of diet, which is a common vehicle for the spread of infection. 3. They are uniformly aijd continuously exposed to the sanitary influences of their own homes, and consequently their condition more accurately reflects those influences than does the condition of adults who may be employed away from their homes most of the day and only return to them to eat and sleep. During the period named in the title of this paper 2.59 children who were born alive died under five years of age* in tlie city of New Haven. This does not include the deaths in Hamden, Westville, the Annex, or on shipboard, and for this reason there will be a slight discrepancy between the figures here given and those of the Registrar of Vital Statistics. To get a proper idea of the significance of this number of deaths, it should be compared with the total number of infants in the city. It is not possible from data at hand to determine the precise number and only an approximate statement can be given. During the five years ending Jan. 1, 1884, there were registered in the city 10,120 births and 2,112 deaths of infants, which would leave about 8,000 infants living in Jan. 1884, assuming that as many had moved into the city as had moved out of it. There is always a preponderance of unrecorded births over imrecorded deaths, which would tend to make the actual infant population * For the sake of brevity in tlie present paper the word infant will be used to mean a. child under five years old.
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