Sir George Newman, Infant Diarrhoeal Mortality and the Paradox of Urbanism

Medical History

Volumn 42, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 347-361

  Walker Smith, John ^a  

^a ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BREAST FEEDING; EPIDEMIC; HEALTH; HISTORY; HUMAN; HYGIENE; INFANT; INFANT MORTALITY; INFANTILE DIARRHEA; MORTALITY; UNITED KINGDOM; URBANIZATION;

BREAST FEEDING; DIARRHEA, INFANTILE; DISEASE OUTBREAKS; ENGLAND; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; HYGIENE; INFANT; INFANT MORTALITY; URBAN HEALTH; URBANIZATION; WALES;

EID: 0032111687     PISSN: 00257273     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0025727300064024     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. G Newman, Infant mortality: a social problem, London, Methuen, 1906.
2. Between 1901 and 1907 Newman published annual reports on the health of Finsbury.
3. Obituary, Br. med. J., 1948, i: 1112-13.
4. G Newman, Report on the health of Finsbury, 1901, p. 18.
5. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. v, vi.
6. Arnold White, Efficiency and empire, London, Methuen, 1901, pp. 102-3, quoted in D Dwork, War is good for babies and other young children, London, Tavistock Publications, 1987, p. 13.
7. Arnold White, Efficiency and empire, London, Methuen, 1901, pp. 102-3, quoted in D Dwork, War is good for babies and other young children, London, Tavistock Publications, 1987, p. 13.
8. Report of the Royal Commission on Decline of Birth-Rate and on Mortality of infants in New South Wales, NSW Parliamentary Papers, vol. 4, 2nd session, 1904.
9. Br. med. J., 1903, ii: 208.
10. Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, London, HMSO, 1904.
11. K Pearson, The groundwork of eugenics, London, Eugenics Laboratory, 1909, p. 32.
12. Putting this into contemporary perspective, the infant mortality in England and Wales in 1992 was 6.6, the lowest ever recorded. The population of England and Wales in 1974 was 49,195,100.
13. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 6, 7. By comparison, present day infant mortality in developing nations in Africa and Asia is approximately 120 and 80 respectively. In many of these countries infantile diarrhoeal mortality is still high. Many of the issues raised by Newman apply in these countries.
14. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 18. The phrase comes from Psalm 139 , "If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea", and reflects his Quaker views.
15. Although not quoted by Newman, contemporary figures for infant mortality from Queensland, as reported by Douglas Gordon in 1990 (Mad dogs and Englishmen went out in the Queensland sun, Brisbane, Amphion Press, 1990, p. 34) indicate the significant advantage of rural over urban environment in Australia at that time. In spite of the fact that the tropics were and still are regarded as unhealthy places, infant mortality rates for tropical Queensland between 1896 and 1905 were 99 per 1,000 deaths, and for Brisbane, 128, and for the period 1906-1915 had fallen to 90 and 64 respectively. The latter figure is even lower than that of New Zealand's 82 so admired by Newman. It is possible, though not proved, that at that time Queensland may have had the lowest infant mortality rate in the British empire apart from the Scottish rural counties of Argyll and Zetland (60.2 and 61.2).
16. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 215, 213.
17. M Lewis, 'The "health of the race" and infant health in New South Wales: perspectives on medicine and empire', in R Macleod and M Lewis (eds), Disease, medicine and empire, London, Routledge, 1988, pp. 301-15.
18. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 34. See also John M Eyler, Sir Arthur Newsholme and state medicine, 1885-1935, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
19. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 34. See also John M Eyler, Sir Arthur Newsholme and state medicine, 1885-1935, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
20. Ibid., p. 145.
21. Sheridan Delépine, writing in J. Hygiene, 1903, 3 (1): 89-90, quoted in Newman, op. cit., note 1, above, p. 148, see also p. 149.
22. Sheridan Delépine, writing in J. Hygiene, 1903, 3 (1): 89-90, quoted in Newman, op. cit., note 1, above, p. 148, see also p. 149.
23. Sheridan Delépine, writing in J. Hygiene, 1903, 3 (1): 89-90, quoted in Newman, op. cit., note 1, above, p. 148, see also p. 149.
24. E Ballard, Supplement to 17th annual report of the Local Government Board 1887-1888, London, HMSO, 1889.
25. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 144-50.
26. William Brend, 'The relative importance of prenatal and post-natal conditions as causes of infant mortality', in National Health Insurance Medical Research Committee, The mortalities of birth, infancy and childhood, London, HMSO, 1918, p. 11.
27. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 149.
28. G Newman, Report on the health of Finsbury, 1901, p. 80.
29. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 149.
30. G Newman, Report on the health of Finsbury, 1905, p. 150.
31. Ibid., p. 185.
32. Ibid., p. 31.
33. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 191.
34. Newman, op. cit., note 26 above, p. 39.
35. G Newman, Bacteria, especially as they are related to the economy of nature, to industrial processes, and to the public health, London, John Murray, 1899.
36. Newman, op. cit., note 26 above, p. 328.
37. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 257.
38. Historically, registration had begun in England in 1812 but this was only registration of baptisms. In 1836 registration of births, deaths and marriages was required but no time limit was set. In 1874 birth registration was required within 42 days of birth in England and Wales, although in Scotland in 1854, registration was required within 21 days.
39. Topley and Wilson's principles of bacteriology and immunology, 3rd ed. revised by G S Wilson and A A Miles, London, Edward Arnold, 1946.
40. A E Garrod, F E Batten and H Thursfield, Diseases of children, London, Edward Arnold, 1913, p. 166.
41. R Vincent, The nutrition of the infant, 3rd ed., London, Baillière, Tindall and Cox, 1910.
42. Morning Post, 6 Aug. 1911.
43. Brend, op. cit., note 22 above.
44. G Newman, The building of a nation's health, London, Macmillan, 1939, p. 312.
45. Milton Lewis, 'Some infant health problems in Sydney, 1880-1939', J. R. Australian hist. Soc., 1982, 68: 70.
46. J Smith, The aetiology of epidemic infantile gastroenteritis, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 1955, p. 10.
47. Personal diary of Sir George Newman (1907-1912), Public Record Office.
48. T McKeown, The role of medicine, Oxford, Blackwell, 1979, p. 57.
49. Br. med. J., 1938, i: 859-60.
50. Jane Lewis, 'Providers, "consumers", the state and the delivery of health-care services in twentieth-century Britain', in A Wear (ed.), Medicine in society, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 317-47.
51. M Wiener, English culture and decline of the industrial spirit 1850-1980, London, Pelican, 1985, pp. 14.
52. R M Woodbury, Causal factors in infant mortality: a statistical study based on investigations in eight cities, Washington, DC, US Government Printing Office, 1925.
53. Samuel H Preston, 'After Fatal years: responses and future research', Bull. Hist. Med., 1994, 68: 124-8.
54. Newman, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 225.
55. Preston, op. cit., note 49 above.
56. Dorothy Porter, 'John Ryle: doctor of revolution', in Dorothy Porter and Roy Porter (eds), Doctors, politics and society: historical essays, Amsterdam and Atlanta, Rodopi, 1993, pp. 247-74.
57. Alisa Klaus, Every child a lion: the origins of maternal and infant health policy in the United States and France 1890-1920, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1993. This book describes the international movement to prevent infant mortality in the early twentieth century focusing on two countries, United States and France, p. 49.
58. Jane Lewis, op. cit., note 46 above, pp. 317-47.
59. C Dyhouse, 'Working-class mothers and infant mortality in England, 1895-1914', in C Webster (ed.), Biology, medicine and society, 1840-1940, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 73-98.
60. H Marland, 'A pioneer in infant welfare: the Huddersfield scheme 1902-1920', Soc. Hist. Med., 1993, 5: 23-41.
61. T B Mepham, '"humanizing" milk: the formulation of artificial feeds for infants (1850-1910)', Med. Hist., 1993, 37: 225-49.
62. Dwork, op. cit., note 6 above, p. 51.
63. Ministry of Health, Annual report of the Chief Medical Officer, 1919-1920, London, HMSO, 1920 (Cmd 978).
64. A Abt and F H Garrison, History of pediatrics, Philadelphia, Saunders, 1923.
65. Dictionary of national biography, 1941-1950, ed. L G Wickham Legge and E T Williams, Oxford University Press, 1959.