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13
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1897.
(1) Bad environment, such as insanitary conditions, overcrowding, and absence
of parks and open spaces. (2) Improper and insufficient food. (3) Mismanagement
through maternal ignorance. (4) Early marriages. (5) Debility, disease, and
dissipation of parents. (6) Maternal neglect, due to mothers being more or less
employed away from home in factories and workshops. (7) Use of opiates; usually
in the form of patent medicines.
The question of how to lessen the excessive destruction of child-life is an
important one. It is a complex result traceable to many causes, each of which
demands careful consideration and separate treatment. Among general measures it
may be broadly stated that anything which tends to raise the standard of wholesomeness
of a district, will also help to diminish the infantile death-rate. Another valuable
aid to prevention would be the education of parents generally in the simpler laws of
healthy living with special reference to the diet and clothing of their offspring.