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368 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...
Early marriage is known to act most injuriously on the health _, and qualities of the offspring " and when the extent to which this
custom is carried among the , unskilled laborers and artisans in all large manufacturing towns is coupled with the fact that the children
horn after such marriages , ( originally deficient in stamina /); are generally kept in unhealthy houses , it cannot excite surprise < that
this , too , is a prolific source of early disease and death . . Of the remediable causes of death which have a wider field of
action than those now referred to , none are so disastrous as the errors committed in the feeding and clothing of infants and children .
Among poor parents , and to a scarcely credible extent among those who ought to be better informed , the greatest ignorance prevails as
to the simplest physiological truths . They constantly act upon the most erroneous notions of the organization and requirements of the
young ; hence it is that from the continued effects of improprieties in feeding , and the pernicious system of exposing too large a portion of
the person of the child , on the false supposition of making it hardy , that more children are annually sacrificed among all classes than
from any other cause , save that of overcrowding . The abuse of medicine , again , constantly administered for the correction of those
slight aberrations from health , which in nine cases out . of ten are simply caused from errors in regimenleads to the j > ro < _^ _° tion of
certain disease , and the destruction of , many children who would have been restored to health by reverting to a right course .
A lamentable illustration of the apathetic indifference to health among a large portion of the poorer classes , is furnished by the
extent to which vaccination is neglected , and the number of young children who die from smallpox—although facilities now
everywhere exist for having the operation gratuitously performed . For the remedy of the foregoing evils the treatment is
sufficiently obvious—namely , improvements in the dwellings of the poor—the erection of hospitals for sick childrensupplemented b
, y some modification of the Scottish parochial system , by which sickness as well as pauperism on the part of the young would be made a
condition of entrance to our poor-houses ; the correction of the now prevalent errors in regard to the management of infancy and
childhood , by giving the rudiments of physiology a place in general education ; the introduction of some method whichwithout removing
, responsibility or the penalty of error , would yet save the lives of . illegitimate children ( few of whom , Mr . Eraser states , survive the first
the year Eng , from lish desertion Compulsory and Vaccin neglect ation , ) and Act the . extension to Scotland of
The enforcement of these and other preventive measures could not but be regarded as hopeful and cheering in their ultimate results .
In . many of the chronic diseases of later life , in those in particular the seeds of which are sown in lected infancythe hysician can do ,
little more than palliate symptoms neg ; nor can he , , for the p infirmities of .
advanced age , do more than " smooth the passage to the tomb ; " but
368 Infant Mortality.
368 INFANT MORTALITY .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1861, page 368, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021861/page/8/
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