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INFANT MORTALITY AND ITS CAUSES. 177
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.
* , About One-Fourth Of All The Children...
demanding close investigation . The practice of overdosing with medicines is another calamitous cause . The lower classes have not
learned the important truth , that nature herself possesses great restorative powersand that all that is necessary for recovery from
, slight indispositions is rest , and a less amount of food than usual . Instead of this , the little patient is placed at the tender mercies of
some druggist , who , as medical adviser to the family , soon converts a transient disturbance of health into a real , often a fatal illness .
It is estimated that in London alone , at least 300 infants perish annually by direct violence . But setting infanticide apartthere
, are many other violent deaths which swell the mortality—burning and scalding through gross neglect of mothers contribute their
quota ; nor must we forget a lamentable but frequent cause of death , that in which the infant is overlaid " in its slumbers by
a careless , perhaps drunken , nurse or mother . The deaths of no less than twelve infants from suffocation in bed were lately
registered as having occurred within a single week . Some idea may be gleaned from this rapid sketchof the terrible
, gauntlet to be run by the offspring of man in his earlier years . Plainly , the brute creation is altogether exempt from some of
the dangers , and less exposed to the effects of all . Plainly , too , the fatal results are in greater part the growth of man ' s own
reckless disregard of well-known laws of life . Ignorance and neglect lie at the root of the evil , and the mortality will diminish
in proportion as these are removed . Many circumstances in the condition of an existence which is itself a struggle for daily bread
expose it to these influences . But there are glaring defects in our social system which are at least capable of much improvement .
If instances are required in which ignorance is a pre-eminent cause of mischief , the effects of improper feeding supply them .
The fatal muffin which figures in the coroner ' s verdict , was given from the belief that it was dainty and appropriate food for the
child . It must be borne in mind that any general cause which affects
the mortality of people at large has a much greater effect on the death-rate of infants . Their delicate organization is more keenly
susceptible of injury than that of adults exposed to the same influences . Neglect of personal cleanliness is an undoubted
cause of disease and death amongst the lower classes . The physiological explanation is perfectly easy . The whole area
of the skin is pierced by millions of apertures , the outlets of minute glands whose purpose is to purify the blood by
excretion . It is of course necessary that these outlets be kept free from obstruction , and that this important function of the skin
be encouraged instead of being impeded . This is the more necessary , because the exhalations are readily condensed by the
tightly fitting dress of modern times . What must be the hygienic condition of that individual whose pores are blocked up by old
TOIL . X . O
Infant Mortality And Its Causes. 177
INFANT MORTALITY AND ITS CAUSES . 177
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1862, page 177, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111862/page/33/
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