Report on the health of the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea for the year 1907.

  • Battersea (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
[1908]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Report on the health of the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea for the year 1907. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    25 consequence, become one of the most pressing social problems of the day, bound up as it is with the existence of evils of an economic and social character in the industrial life of the nation. The causes of infantile mortality are composite in character, and require careful examination. These causes may be classified into ante-natal and post-natal, or those affecting the life of the child before and after birth. With regard to the first, the physical condition of the parents is a matter of material con sideration, influencing as it does the viability of the unborn child. This is at once apparent in the fact that a large proportion of children born die in the first few weeks after birth. The health of the parents, and especially the mother, is therefore a matter of supreme importance. With regard to the second, or post natal conditions, these may be regarded as being more asso ciated with the suckling infant. Broadly speaking, infantile mortality is due to three main diseased conditions, dependent on either ante- or post-natal causes, or both— 1. Prematurity, debility and atrophy. 2. Diarrhoea and convulsions. 3. Respiratory diseases (bronchitis and pneumonia). Prematurity and debility are specially fatal in the first few days of life, and diarrhoea from the fourth to the ninth month. Respiratory diseases affect the child at any time during the first year of life. The inference to be drawn from a consideration of the factors associated with infantile mortality is that a certain proportion of these deaths is inevitable; that is, the children are born prematurely and start life so handicapped that they have not sufficient vitality to survive their new environment, the result of ante-natal causes or causes acting through the mother. The other diseased conditions, i.e., diarrhoea and lung affections, are due to causes which are largely preventable, such as unsuitable food, exposure, &c.