Infant mortality and its reduction, especially in New York City / L. Emmett Holt.

  • Holt, L. Emmett (Luther Emmett), 1855-1924.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Infant mortality and its reduction, especially in New York City / L. Emmett Holt. 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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    that time a general decline is seen until 1908, when the rate was but IT per thousand, the lowest point in the century. The obvious explanation of this seems to be that the rapid increase of population with very little regard for sanitation brought about a steadily rising death-rate. With the beginning of modern sanitary regulations, however, a change soon became apparent. In 1866 the New York Health Department was organ- ized. Largely through its activities and the advances in our knowledge of the methods of preventing disease there has ocurred a reduction in the death-rate which, when we consider the constantly increasing concentration of population and the present condition of overcrowding, seems truly remarkable. hp to the year 185-1 the mortality line is a very irregu- lar one, the sharp peaks indicating the great epidemics which visited the city. But these wide fluctuations grad- ually disappear, and since 1882, especially, the yearly variations are within comparatively narrow limits. The year 1832, the first great rise, marks the great cholera epidemic; a similar one to-day would mean 35,000 deaths in the boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx. The }fears 1834, 1849, 1854 and 1866 were also cholera years. Epidemics of smallpox were witnessed in 1849, 1851, 1854 and 1865. An epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis occurred in 1872, and the same year smallpox was also prevalent. The years 1881 and 1882 were years of great preva- lence of both scarlet fever and diptheria. The rise of 1901 was due to influenza and complicating pneumonia; that of 1904 marks the most severe year of the recent epidemics of cerebrospinal meningitis. The line of infant mortality (under one j^ear) follows in a general way that of total mortality, but shows fewer abrupt rises, since infants were less affected than were adults in the epidemics. At what period of life the reduction in the death-rate has occurred does not appear until we separate the deaths over five and the deaths under five, and again the deaths under one and deaths from one to five years. From 1866 to the present the accuracy of the figures can, I think, be depended on.3 Since that time, com- paring deaths over five with those under five, we note that for the first few years, until about 1870, these mor- 3. Reports of the New York Health Department, especially 1906.