Infant mortality / by A. K. Chalmers.

  • Chalmers, Archibald Kerr.
Date:
[1906]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Infant mortality / by A. K. Chalmers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The male births always exceed the female in number, but the male infant deaths are disproportionately greater. It is a fair enough inference from these rates that if we had information regarding the proportion of still to live births in each sex, we should find this feature prolonged backwards during intra-uterine life up to the precise point where sex is distinguishable.* Classification of Diseases Fatal in the Several Quarters of the First Year. With the knowledge that about one-half of the total infant deaths occur during the first three months of extra-uterine life, and keeping in view the stationary character of the death-rate at this period, it may fairly be assumed that a large proportion of these deaths result, not from disease in the ordinary sense, but from the lack of certain vital forces which make independent life difficult, if not impossible. In other words, vitality in the newly born has a negative as well as a positive aspect. It is a quality of the child at birth rather than the accident of its surroundings afterwards. Here, however, we may appeal to the causes to which these deaths are attributed, and for this purpose I have grouped these to which the infant deaths of 1903-4 have been ascribed. These number 3,952 males and 3,186 females. With regard to the groupings here adopted, but specially with reference to the inclusion of “ atrophy and debility ” among the deaths which are here ascribed to “ immaturity,” it may be urged that this term includes deaths arising from the wasting diseases of childhood, and related, therefore, rather to disorders of diet than to congenital defect. But while this undoubtedly is the case, the large number of deaths attributed to these causes which occurs in the early weeks seems to point to an initial defect in vitality, and the time of their occurrence rather than the causes under which they have been registered has been allowed to determine their inclusion in Group I. Groups III., IV., and V., must also be regarded as overlapping, because terms such as “ convulsions, fits, etc.,” have reference rather to the mode of death than its cause, and must frequently lead to the * Of 7,133 infants’ deaths in the year 1903-4 (3,947 of which were males and 3,186 females), 49 (48'6)% of the former and 48 (47'8)% of the latter died during the.first three months; but 31 (30 7)% of the male deaths and 29 (29*4) % of the female deaths occurred during the first month the number of each attributable to accidents of birth bring 27 and 12, or 2 2 and and 1 2 ^ respectively of the numbers occurring under one month, a difference most likely resulting from the difference in size of the child, and the relation of this to the pelvic measurements.