Problems of Infant Mortality

PROBLEMS OF INFANT MORTALITY D. J. W. SCHERESCHEWSKY, M. PUBLIC HEALTH AND MARINE HOSPITAL AVASlIlNCiTOX, I). C. I>i-inte4l by the Cliilcl-Helpinu Department of the Kussell Sate Foimclatioii , lOo Kast a2cl Stret't . New York 50 \^Q^ V.C Address at the Virginia Child Welfare Conference at Ricliniond .•n2io« immmmmiti PROBLEMS OF INFANT MORTALITY M. D. BY T. W. SCHERESCHEWSKY, Among ancient tribes a certain form of reprisal was in vogue against weaker tribes who had been so unfor- tunate as to incur their displeasure. This form of reprisal was then, and in this day, is held to be synonymous with the acme of barbarity. Its mode of execution was as fol- down lows : They simply swooped upon the unhappy objects of their an- imosity, and, having captured them, proceeded to put every tenth individ- ual to death. This process was called "decimation" by the Romans, and even now, the verb '*to decimate" carries with riot. it the significance of death run We speak of armies being "decimated" by war, of a people being ''decimated" by pestilence, and. under such conditions, remain aghast at the tragedies of human existence. ; 2 PROHLEMS OF Yet, there is a form of decimation, of more than decimation, which has been going on in our midst for un- counted generations. Under the very best conditions, this destructive process amounts to simple decimation ; simple, at the worst, not merely to quad- but to double, triple and even ruple decimation. This form of decimation which, has re- only till very recent years, mained practically unnoticed, is the mortality of infants in the first year of life. In the short space of time at my than disposal I can do very little more facts in to outline briefly the main are this problem, and indicate why we now just beginning to give it the attention it has long since merited. few, ex- It is safe to say that very in the cept those who are interested status matter, are aware of the actual upon in- of the mortality attendant fants in the first year of life. statements will serve . The following to give you an idea of it. A new born child has less chance of ninety of living a week than a man I.\I-.\XT MORTALITY 3 of living a year, less than that of a man of eighty. Over 3,200,000 infants of less than 12 months of age perish annually in the countries forming the civilized world, or, at the rate of one in less than ten seconds every hour of the twenty-four. The science of vital statistics per- mits us to look into the matter a little more closely. Thus, as an example of simple decimation of the new born, we turn to the vital statistics of Ireland, one of the countries of Europe possessing a relatively very favorable infant death rate, and we find for the 10 year period of 1895-1904 that out of every thousand children born there, 104 died in the first twelve months of life, or a little more than one in ten. An example of double decimation is shown in the death rate of Germany, where, for the past 10 years, there has been an average of 197 infant deaths in every thousand born, or a very little less than 2 in 10. Of nearly triple decimation, the Russian empire can be cited as an ex- 4 PROBLEMS OF ample, with 263 infants of every thousand dying before the completion of their first twelve-month. Triple decimation is actuallly present in Chii, where 323 out of each thousand of the new born perish in their first year, and in certain sections of the globe, as in the Philippine Islands, the mortality among infants is probably greater than this, as in the city of Manila, where 48 per cent of the total deaths of the Philippine population occur in infants under one year of age. With respect to infant mortality, the countries most favorably situated in Europe are Sweden and Norway, with averages of 96 and 86, respect- ively, for the last ten years, although their infant mortality rate has been somewhat lower than this of recent years, reaching in Xorway in the relatively extraordinary figure of only 69 out of every thousand born, in 1907. As to the United States, for that is the country that we are especially interested in. it is a regrettable fact that we can do no more than estimate our infant mortalitv rate. This is due IXFAXT MORTALITY 5 to the circumstance that only about 55 per cent of our population live under the effective operation of any vital registration laws whatever, and only a few states pretend to any ac- curacy in the registration of births. We can, however, estimate that in this country not far from 150 infants out of every thousand born will perish in the first twelve-months. In many of our cities, however, and particu- larly in manufacturing towns, the infant death rate is fa'r higher than this, double, in a number of instances. Somewhere about one-fourth the number of all deaths in any country is made up of little children less than two \''ears old. It is a notable fact that, living as we are in an age distinguished above all others for the advances which have been made in all the arts and sciences, medical science especially, in spite of our boasted achievements, in spite of the lengthening of the average span of human life by ten years, that our babies still continue to die in the pro- fusion of former years and the infant mortality rate remains at nearly the 6 I'ROBLEMS OF altitudinous level of previous generations. We can realize from the foregoing that we have, all of us, run desperate chances in being born at all. Those born in this country run a little worse chance than 1 to 5 dying before the end of the first year, while in Russia our chance would be about 1 in 4. In other words, the average man runs a far better chance of not dying from an attack of typhoid fever, let us say, than he does from dying an infant, and, in certain countries and in manufacturing towns, he would have decidedly better chances with a severe attack of pneumonia. If. then, the mere business of being a baby must be classified as an extra hazardous occupation; if all the perils which ever encompass human existence are never so bitterly emphasized as in the first year of fife, why is it, then, that we have heard so little of this in previous years? With the advent, however, of our modern social conditions, the increasing complexity of our present life, the higher cost of living, the concentra- INFANT MORTALITY 7 tion of population in the cities, and the increasing age at which marriages are contracted, there has been a steady dimunition practically throughout the entire world in the annual number of births. In some countries, largely agricul- tural in character, the birth rate is still sufficiently high, while in others, such as France, it is very low. In- deed, in the latter country, the births are insufficient completely to ofifset the total number of deaths. We are, therefore, at the present day, face to face with the problem of the gradual depopulation of the earth. Under present social conditions it is hardly likely that we can do much to- wards increasing the number of births. Therefore, with the menace of racial extinction ever looming larger before us, we must adopt the policy of saving of what we have. It is by no means certain that any f^reat increase in the annual number of births is even desirable. Quality, not quantity, is what we are after. A necessary sequence to a high infant 8 PROBLEMS OF mortality rate is the larger number of children, who, having weathered the storms of the first year, reach the haven of comparative safety of the other years of life in a battered, weak- ened and crippled condition, such as forever handicaps them in becoming efficient social units. It is, therefore, in the nature of an axiom that in the degree to which the infant mortality rate is lowered, to a far greater degree will we diminish the great army of defective and de- generate children among us. What measures shall we adopt to meet the indications of this problem? In the first place we have to fmd what makes all those infants die. Some years ago this question occu- pied greatly the attention of two French physicians, Balestre and Gileta de St. Josef. They went over the death returns of some 2,500 French cities and towns and analyzed the causes of death of all the infants dying under one year of age . They found that out of one thousand such infant deaths, 385 died of gastro-intestinal disorders, 171 died of INFANT MORTALITY 9 congenital debility, 147 died of disease of the lungs, 50 died of infec- tious disease, 25 of tuberculosis, and 222 from all other causes. We see, then, that diseases of the digestive system, congenital weakness, and diseases of the respiratory pass- age are responible for 70 per cent of all infant deaths. The analysis of the cause of infant deaths in other locali- ties gives substantially the same re- sults. We are, therefore, furnished by this analysis with something definite to- wards which to direct our efforts.

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