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364 INFANT MORTALITY.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
A # Intakttiie Death-Kates. De. W. T. Ga...
was not less evident that agriculture , per se , was not the determining * cause of the mischief—the district of Glendale alone being
enough to prove that it was possible for a large proportion of the population to be engaged in agriculture without any increased
effect upon the death-rate . What , then , was the solution of this two-sided difficulty ? First , agriculturean occupation apparently
, other eminentl districts y favorable ; secondl to y low , agriculture death-rates , when in the largel case y of diffused Glendale as and an
industry over the Midland counties , apparently unfavorable to infantile life . Dr . Headlam Greenhow had strongly insisted on
the danger frequently accruing to the health of the female population or of the children in rural districts from the occupation of
lace-making , straw-plait weaving , straw-bonnet making , , & c . ; but whatever might be the practical influence of such manufactures ,
it was not the sole or even the principal cause of infantile mortalityfor it was only in seven of the agricultural counties that
these manufactures , acquired any decided preponderance . He could arrive at no other conclusion , than this—that the habits of the
great agricultural populations of England , probably slow of formationand transmitted down from generation to generation in
some way , or other , were apt to give rise to neglect of the family relation or of maternal duty , and that the employment of women in
some counties in special industries was one consequence of this habitual neglectwhile the imperfect rearing of children was
, another and a still more widely-spread result . With regard to the infantile death-rates of London , the West
End districts had a general death-rate much below the average of town districtsand that even taking into account the " slums" of
, Westminster and the inferior population of St . Martin ' s-in-the-Fieldsthe mean death-rate of all the districtswhich , were the
, , great seats of business and fashionable life , were decidedly below London as a whole , and still more below the average of other
great cities . Of course there are many large populations in London where the general death-rates are very highcoming up to
, 29 in 1000 ; but he directed special a . ttention _^ to the fact that the infant mortality in London bore no appreciable j ) _roportion to the
general death-rate . A careful consideration of the Kegistrar-General's returns had led him to the conclusion that all the West
End districts pf London are fatal to children in a proportion which was really enormous , when the favorable state of the general
death-rate was considered . For example , St . George ' s , Hanover Square , with very nearly the lowest general death-rate in
London , was , with all its wealth and splendor , only a little less fatal to infants than Shoreditch , Bermondsey , and Lambeth . It
was more fatal than the Strand district or Stepney , far more fatal than Greenwichand in a still more striking proportionmore fatal
, , than Wandsworth , _Camberwell , and the outlying districts in
general .
364 Infant Mortality.
364 INFANT MORTALITY .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1861, page 364, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021861/page/4/
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