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Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1862. 15
remains there, and carries out the instincts of her nature; and the result is that which I have
stated. Infant life will always be preserved in proportion to the care that is bestowed upon
it: for the delicacy of its organisation, and the susceptibility of its nervous system renders
it peculiarly obnoxious to external influences, and makes its hold on life very insecure.
Indeed an infant death rate is the most delicate test of the sanitary condition of any place.
"It cannot be too distinctly recognised that a high local mortality of children, must almost
necessarily denote a high local prevalence of those causes which determine a degeneration
of race." But there still remain other causes, which like lesser currents, add to the depth,
and sweep of this great death stream. There is the baneful system of drugging so prevalent,
and so unconsciously as it were, carried on. In Coventry, the quantity of Godfrey's
Cordial consumed was found upon enquiry to amount to the enormous quantity of ten gallons
per week, equal, Dr. Greenhow tells us, to 12,000 doses. A member of the Town
Council of Nottingham has said, that in the shop where he served his apprenticeship, 13 cwt.
of treacle was manufactured into Godfrey's Cordial; and another gentleman of the
same Council, and in the drug trade, stated that he had sold about 400 gallons of Laudanum
annually; one half at least of which, he believed, was given to infants. We may
reasonably ask, What justification the mother has to give for the lavish use of this baneful
drug ? She has an answer ready; and plausible enough, also. Her husband, with others
of the family, are out at hard work all the day; and they must have their rest, which is
impossible if disturbed all night by the cries of children. So their cries are stifled;
smothered down into silence beneath the benumbing influence of opium: and thus
perish thousands; indirectly doubtless, as they dwindle and pine gradually and slowly
away*.
Lastly, there is the most sad, and most dreadful cause of all yet enumerated, resulting
in the deaths of Infants:—Murder. This is done for the purpose of hiding shame, or being
freed from a burden, or to obtain burial money. "In the starved cities, in the uttermost
doomed ruin of old Jerusalem, fallen under the wrath of God, it was prophesied and said,
'The hands of pitiful women have sodden their own children.' The stern Hebrew imagination
could conceive no blacker gulf of wretchedness": yet now, in this neither starved nor
doomed city, is infanticide increasing to a very serious extent, and by the "hands of pitiful
women."
For all these causes, which give rise to so large an Infant mortality, no one remedy
exists. The evils have sent their roots far too deep down, and have so intertwined themselves
with our social system, that all hope of their speedy and sure removal would be
vain. Before any steps however can be usefully taken, it will be necessary that they
be thoroughly examined and understood.
Some little advance has certainly been made within the last few years, in the
general rearing of Infants. There is abroad, a greater amount of knowledge concerning
their wants and necessities. Social science has taught mothers, and nurses, the folly
of rolling them up in mummy fashion; leaving no room for play of lung, and limb.
The advantage of cleanliness is better appreciated; and a purer air is far more obtainable
now in towns, than was formerly possible. But these advantages, when compared with
the evils that still remain,—how small!
* See the Fourth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, pp 195, 1861.