| dc.description.abstract | Modern medical science,aided by all the latest
discoveries,and assisted by well equipped laboratories,has been spreading its tentacles over the wide world
and grappled with the problems of disease of all races
and of all climes.Schools of tropical medicine are rapidly becoming established,and,under their auspices,
expeditions have been formed to endeavour to cope with
and,if possible,destroy the causes of maiaria, sleeping
sickness,yellow fever,and other diseases imperfectly
understood at present,and likely to be so until our
knowledge concerning their protean manifestations has
been advanced by prospective research.Their beneficial
results are known to all,and their achievements duly
applauded but meanwhile there still remain, even at
home, widespread diseases whose names are commonplace
expressions,which take their toll of infant lives,
year by year; so that,until some vigorous crusade is
started throughout the land,when people awake to the
significance of the wastage of infant life, and the
deformity and physical enfeeblement of the children,
these modern evils are likely to remain in our midst.
Many great problems are to be faced in our own
country;and the greatest of them all is the terrible
mortality among infants,under one year of age,that goes
on,year by year,unchecked and undiminished by the
improved conditions of living introduced by science
and preventive medicine.The adult death-rate has been
reduced by modern medicine and hygiene;but they appear
to have in no way affected the rate of infantile
mortality.
We are face to face with the fact that,although
the general death-rate is decreasing, the infantile
mortality is not declining (Newman, - Infantile Mortality). In 1905, the death-rate of infants in England and
Wales was 120,000,which equalled one-quarter of all
the deaths in that year.This about equals the population of Birkenhead. Imagine this town,wiped out by disaster,or deceminated by a widespread epidemic causing
120,000 deaths; in other words,concentrate this loss
of life, and immediately public feeling would be
aroused,the press would be stirred, every effort would
be made to discover the cause,and steps would be
taken to avert, if possible, a similar calamity in the
future!
Yet, because this loss of life is spread over a
wide area of space and time, it has been allowed to go
on for fifty years, sapping the nation's newborn
strength and depriving it of a population which would
be useful to it in future generations. In all tranches
of science and medicine the last half-century can
point to wonderful achievements :yet, when we read that
the infantile mortality is almost stationary,surely
a feeling almost akin to shame must sweep over us!
In the course of this thesis it is proposed to
inquire, on these broad lines, into the etiology of
rickets, and also to discuss the best means to be
adopted to prevent and treat the disease. | en |
