Much has been said and written about infant mortality and particularly about its decline. Even statesmen have cited its decrease as suggestive evidence of the benefits which arise from their stewardship. They are, it would seem, oblivious of the fact that the decline is not of recent occurrence but one which has been operating over a period of many years. The facts are easy to appreciate. Fifty years ago the mortality in infancy in England and Wales exceeded 150 per 1,000 births; in 1948 it was 34, an impressive reduction which was particularly observable in the age group 3-12 months. The reduction in the first four weeks of life has been less satisfactory. It may well be asked whether each contributory cause of death in early infancy has declined equally or whether some have declined more than others. If the average annual change in the mortality " under 4 weeks " during the period 1931-38 is expressed as a percentage of the mean death rate in that period in England and Wales, the statistical picture for certain broad categories is as in Table I. It will be noted that in four instances the mortality has declined, the annual decrement being largest (9-1 per cent.) for convulsions. The death rate in the two remaining groups, congenital malformations and injury at birth, increased, and the increment for the latter was the greater as the values were 1 1 per cent, and 2-6 per cent, respectively. It should be stated, however, that there is a school of expert medical opinion which regards such observed increments as fictitious. Although it recognizes the total neonatal mortality as a reliable figure, it suggests that the constituent causes defy statistical analysis owing to the inability of doctors in general to state, with any degree of precision, the exact cause of death at this period of life. The difficulties of accurate certification of causes of death in the first four weeks of life are well recognized, but it would se m unlikely that medical men are in the habit of exa gerating birth injury as a cause. Indeed, the joi t report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Paediatric Association (1949) has suggested a much higher rate of mortality from birth injury than is revealed by the Registrar General's tabulations. It is not the province of a statistician to question the v lidity of medical diagnosis. In the absence of a sudden or startling departure from the normal mortality (apart from epidemic experience), he accepts the declared findings as facts although he is, at the same time, fully conscious of the vagaries of medical opinion and the influence of new preci sions on diagnosis. We have been told, however, tha the increments which have been demonstrated in the mortality from injury at birth may possibly be due to a transfer of deaths from asphyxia, atelec tasis, or convulsions. The death rate from con vulsions has declined, and convulsions in children under four weeks are believed, in many instances, to be th
{"title":"Mortality amongst babies from injury at birth.","authors":"W T RUSSELL, I SUTHERLAND","doi":"10.1136/jech.3.2.85","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.3.2.85","url":null,"abstract":"Much has been said and written about infant mortality and particularly about its decline. Even statesmen have cited its decrease as suggestive evidence of the benefits which arise from their stewardship. They are, it would seem, oblivious of the fact that the decline is not of recent occurrence but one which has been operating over a period of many years. The facts are easy to appreciate. Fifty years ago the mortality in infancy in England and Wales exceeded 150 per 1,000 births; in 1948 it was 34, an impressive reduction which was particularly observable in the age group 3-12 months. The reduction in the first four weeks of life has been less satisfactory. It may well be asked whether each contributory cause of death in early infancy has declined equally or whether some have declined more than others. If the average annual change in the mortality \" under 4 weeks \" during the period 1931-38 is expressed as a percentage of the mean death rate in that period in England and Wales, the statistical picture for certain broad categories is as in Table I. It will be noted that in four instances the mortality has declined, the annual decrement being largest (9-1 per cent.) for convulsions. The death rate in the two remaining groups, congenital malformations and injury at birth, increased, and the increment for the latter was the greater as the values were 1 1 per cent, and 2-6 per cent, respectively. It should be stated, however, that there is a school of expert medical opinion which regards such observed increments as fictitious. Although it recognizes the total neonatal mortality as a reliable figure, it suggests that the constituent causes defy statistical analysis owing to the inability of doctors in general to state, with any degree of precision, the exact cause of death at this period of life. The difficulties of accurate certification of causes of death in the first four weeks of life are well recognized, but it would se m unlikely that medical men are in the habit of exa gerating birth injury as a cause. Indeed, the joi t report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Paediatric Association (1949) has suggested a much higher rate of mortality from birth injury than is revealed by the Registrar General's tabulations. It is not the province of a statistician to question the v lidity of medical diagnosis. In the absence of a sudden or startling departure from the normal mortality (apart from epidemic experience), he accepts the declared findings as facts although he is, at the same time, fully conscious of the vagaries of medical opinion and the influence of new preci sions on diagnosis. We have been told, however, tha the increments which have been demonstrated in the mortality from injury at birth may possibly be due to a transfer of deaths from asphyxia, atelec tasis, or convulsions. The death rate from con vulsions has declined, and convulsions in children under four weeks are believed, in many instances, to be th","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"3 2","pages":"85-94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1949-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/jech.3.2.85","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27169303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social medicine; a study of the first 100 patients of a university department of industrial health.","authors":"R C BROWNE, I F BECK, R I McCALLUM","doi":"10.1136/jech.3.2.77","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.3.2.77","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"3 2","pages":"77-84"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1949-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/jech.3.2.77","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27178989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A study on birth-weight and intelligence.","authors":"C ASHER, J A F ROBERTS","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"3 2","pages":"56-68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1949-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1012534/pdf/brjsocmed00010-0013.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27169301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As long ago as 1857 Dr. Taylor of Penrith showed that an outbreak of typhoid fever was spread by milk. Since that date the literature has been strewn with reports on milk-spread outbreaks of infectious disease, but even so numerous outbreaks remain unrecorded. The importance of milk as a vehicle for the trans mission of disease is due to three factors. The cow may suffer from infections which are common also to man; milk is a suitable medium for the multiplica tion of most pathogenic organisms and ingestion is an important factor in infection; milk is much handled between cow and consumer, so facilitating its infection. There are three sources of human milk-spread infections. (1) Bovine infection of the cow may cause tuberculosis, brucellosis, some salmonella infections, and, very rarely, foot and mouth disease and anthrax. (2) Through the cow, but in the animal due to human bacterial strains implanted from human sources, some scarlet fever and other streptococcal infections and certain staphylococcal infections are so disseminated. (3) Specific contam ination of the milk after it leaves the cow may be the cause of the enteric infections, i.e. typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever and dysentery, diphtheria, some scarlet fever and other streptococcal infections, most staphylococcal infections, and some salmonella outbreaks. Although it is possible to estimate with consider able accuracy the extent to which tuberculosis in man is of bovine origin and to make an estimate of human brucellosis, we are without reliable statistics of the extent of other infections. The Ministry of Health list of milk-borne out breaks of infection reported in Great Britain between 1900 and 1933 and tabulated by the Committee on Cattle Diseases includes 97 outbreaks, analysed as enteric fever 30, paratyphoid fever 7, typhoid and dysentery 4, diphtheria 14, scarlet fever 28, sore throat 5, gastro-enteritis 3, salmonella 3, sickness and diarrhoea 3. G. S. Wilson in The Pasteurization of Milk mentions 69 outbreaks in the years 1912-37 comprising scarlet fever and septic sore throat 40, diphtheria 20, the three enteric diseases 39, gastro enteritis 14; total 113. Both authorities stress the marked incompleteness of the records. The com parative prevalence today of these infections can be judged from the following list of 25 outbreaks over the last seven years collected by the author without any detailed study of the literature. They are (excluding tuberculosis) undulant fever 2, scarlet fever 2, diphtheria 1, typhoid fever 2, paratyphoid fever 4, dysentery 11 (Sonne type 9, other types 2), salmonella Dublin 2, staphylococcus food poisoning 1. Many outbreaks are never recorded in the literature or only obtain brief mention in not readily accessible annual reports of medical officers of health. It is probably a decided understatement to write that well over 50 per cent, of definite outbreaks are never recorded in available literature.
{"title":"Milk-borne infections in Great Britain.","authors":"W SAVAGE","doi":"10.1136/jech.3.2.45","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.3.2.45","url":null,"abstract":"As long ago as 1857 Dr. Taylor of Penrith showed that an outbreak of typhoid fever was spread by milk. Since that date the literature has been strewn with reports on milk-spread outbreaks of infectious disease, but even so numerous outbreaks remain unrecorded. The importance of milk as a vehicle for the trans mission of disease is due to three factors. The cow may suffer from infections which are common also to man; milk is a suitable medium for the multiplica tion of most pathogenic organisms and ingestion is an important factor in infection; milk is much handled between cow and consumer, so facilitating its infection. There are three sources of human milk-spread infections. (1) Bovine infection of the cow may cause tuberculosis, brucellosis, some salmonella infections, and, very rarely, foot and mouth disease and anthrax. (2) Through the cow, but in the animal due to human bacterial strains implanted from human sources, some scarlet fever and other streptococcal infections and certain staphylococcal infections are so disseminated. (3) Specific contam ination of the milk after it leaves the cow may be the cause of the enteric infections, i.e. typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever and dysentery, diphtheria, some scarlet fever and other streptococcal infections, most staphylococcal infections, and some salmonella outbreaks. Although it is possible to estimate with consider able accuracy the extent to which tuberculosis in man is of bovine origin and to make an estimate of human brucellosis, we are without reliable statistics of the extent of other infections. The Ministry of Health list of milk-borne out breaks of infection reported in Great Britain between 1900 and 1933 and tabulated by the Committee on Cattle Diseases includes 97 outbreaks, analysed as enteric fever 30, paratyphoid fever 7, typhoid and dysentery 4, diphtheria 14, scarlet fever 28, sore throat 5, gastro-enteritis 3, salmonella 3, sickness and diarrhoea 3. G. S. Wilson in The Pasteurization of Milk mentions 69 outbreaks in the years 1912-37 comprising scarlet fever and septic sore throat 40, diphtheria 20, the three enteric diseases 39, gastro enteritis 14; total 113. Both authorities stress the marked incompleteness of the records. The com parative prevalence today of these infections can be judged from the following list of 25 outbreaks over the last seven years collected by the author without any detailed study of the literature. They are (excluding tuberculosis) undulant fever 2, scarlet fever 2, diphtheria 1, typhoid fever 2, paratyphoid fever 4, dysentery 11 (Sonne type 9, other types 2), salmonella Dublin 2, staphylococcus food poisoning 1. Many outbreaks are never recorded in the literature or only obtain brief mention in not readily accessible annual reports of medical officers of health. It is probably a decided understatement to write that well over 50 per cent, of definite outbreaks are never recorded in available literature.","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"3 2","pages":"45-55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1949-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/jech.3.2.45","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27169300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Registrar General for England and Wales tells us not only how fast our species is killed, but what kills it, and the preference a specified disease has for different age-groups and for different occupations. The selectivity in the action of the various killers of our species with regard to social status and occupation has found expression in the so-called Standard Mortality Ratio (S.M.R.) which is the index the Registrar General uses for the purpose of describing the selective action of diseases. The S.M.R. may be briefly explained thus. The Registrar General calculates " standard deaths," which are the numbers obtained by applying the general mortality rates of Table 3 of the Registrar General's Decennial Supplement England and Wales, Part IIA, Occupational Mortality, 1931, for all males, all married women, or all single women, as the case may be, at the appropriate age-groups, 20-25-35-4555-65, to three times the census population of the occupational group as given inTable 4 of the Report, and summing the products. They represent the deaths which would result in an occupation group if that group were exposed at each age to the standard mortality risks. The S.M.R. is the percentage ratio of the deaths actually registered for the group to the calculated standard deaths. There is, however, apart from systematic and accidental errors of diagnosis, a type of error to be taken into account in comparing S.M.R.s. This is the error due to the fact that the people following
{"title":"Control charts for the standard mortality ratio.","authors":"G HERDAN","doi":"10.1136/jech.3.2.69","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.3.2.69","url":null,"abstract":"The Registrar General for England and Wales tells us not only how fast our species is killed, but what kills it, and the preference a specified disease has for different age-groups and for different occupations. The selectivity in the action of the various killers of our species with regard to social status and occupation has found expression in the so-called Standard Mortality Ratio (S.M.R.) which is the index the Registrar General uses for the purpose of describing the selective action of diseases. The S.M.R. may be briefly explained thus. The Registrar General calculates \" standard deaths,\" which are the numbers obtained by applying the general mortality rates of Table 3 of the Registrar General's Decennial Supplement England and Wales, Part IIA, Occupational Mortality, 1931, for all males, all married women, or all single women, as the case may be, at the appropriate age-groups, 20-25-35-4555-65, to three times the census population of the occupational group as given inTable 4 of the Report, and summing the products. They represent the deaths which would result in an occupation group if that group were exposed at each age to the standard mortality risks. The S.M.R. is the percentage ratio of the deaths actually registered for the group to the calculated standard deaths. There is, however, apart from systematic and accidental errors of diagnosis, a type of error to be taken into account in comparing S.M.R.s. This is the error due to the fact that the people following","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"3 2","pages":"69-76"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1949-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/jech.3.2.69","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27169302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Latterly much attention has been attracted, and rightly so, to the number, variety, and potency of the socio-economic factors which strongly incline married couples deliberately to restrain their fertility and thereby to limit the size of-their families. A tendency to overlook a number of purely biological factors which work in the same direction is to be discerned. These latter are for the most part not under the control of the will of the individual and are as yet far beyond the powers of the medical and social sciences in application. It is not suggested that these factors, as judged by their effects, play as important a role in determining family size as do the socio-economic, or that pronatalist policies are mistaken when based on the demonstrably reasonable assumption that if only the people could be persuaded to unleash their fertility the total size of our population could easily be maintained at its present level or even enlarged. Nevertheless, it is surely desirable when population policies are being fashioned that all and not merely the more potent factors known to affect fertility shall be taken into account.
{"title":"Biological factors affecting family size.","authors":"F A E CREW","doi":"10.1136/jech.3.1.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.3.1.1","url":null,"abstract":"Latterly much attention has been attracted, and rightly so, to the number, variety, and potency of the socio-economic factors which strongly incline married couples deliberately to restrain their fertility and thereby to limit the size of-their families. A tendency to overlook a number of purely biological factors which work in the same direction is to be discerned. These latter are for the most part not under the control of the will of the individual and are as yet far beyond the powers of the medical and social sciences in application. It is not suggested that these factors, as judged by their effects, play as important a role in determining family size as do the socio-economic, or that pronatalist policies are mistaken when based on the demonstrably reasonable assumption that if only the people could be persuaded to unleash their fertility the total size of our population could easily be maintained at its present level or even enlarged. Nevertheless, it is surely desirable when population policies are being fashioned that all and not merely the more potent factors known to affect fertility shall be taken into account.","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"3 1","pages":"1-9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1949-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/jech.3.1.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27155773","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the last few years considerable attention has been paid to the rheumatic diseases and, in particu lar, rheumatic fever. Glover (1943, 1946) has shown that the mortality from the latter has declined considerably in the last sixty years and that recently this decline has been accelerated. On these grounds he called acute rheumatism an obsolescent disease. In contrast, Morris and Titmuss (1942), Parkinson (1945), and Ryle (1946) have called attention to the heavy toll still taken by rheumatic heart disease, and to the fact that adolescents and young adults are its main victims. Considerable local and regional differences in the mortality from rheumatic heart disease have been observed in England and Wales (and also in mor bidity), and in an attempt to determine the aetiology many workers have related these differences to social and environmental conditions. Poverty has been among the chief factors incriminated. Reports issued some twenty years ago by the Ministry of Health (1927) and the Medical Research Council (1927) agree that acute rheumatism rarely attacks the children of well-to-do parents. Morris and Titmuss hold the view that " the whole complex of poverty " is involved in the production of juvenile rheumatism, and Daniel (1943), in his study of rheumatic heart disease in Bristol, concluded that there was a significant association between its incidence and low family income. The suggestion in the Medical Research Council's report that the incidence was greatest in the artisan class is suppor ted by Wilson (1940) but denied by Morris and Titmuss. Bad housing has also been condemned as a cause of acute rheumatism, but the evidence incriminating dampness, ill-ventilation, living in basements, and other features is not clear. Overcrowding is often associated with bad housing, and some authorities have held this factor to be important. In the
{"title":"Mortality from rheumatic heart disease in children and young adults in England and Wales.","authors":"J KNOWELDEN","doi":"10.1136/jech.3.1.29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.3.1.29","url":null,"abstract":"In the last few years considerable attention has been paid to the rheumatic diseases and, in particu lar, rheumatic fever. Glover (1943, 1946) has shown that the mortality from the latter has declined considerably in the last sixty years and that recently this decline has been accelerated. On these grounds he called acute rheumatism an obsolescent disease. In contrast, Morris and Titmuss (1942), Parkinson (1945), and Ryle (1946) have called attention to the heavy toll still taken by rheumatic heart disease, and to the fact that adolescents and young adults are its main victims. Considerable local and regional differences in the mortality from rheumatic heart disease have been observed in England and Wales (and also in mor bidity), and in an attempt to determine the aetiology many workers have related these differences to social and environmental conditions. Poverty has been among the chief factors incriminated. Reports issued some twenty years ago by the Ministry of Health (1927) and the Medical Research Council (1927) agree that acute rheumatism rarely attacks the children of well-to-do parents. Morris and Titmuss hold the view that \" the whole complex of poverty \" is involved in the production of juvenile rheumatism, and Daniel (1943), in his study of rheumatic heart disease in Bristol, concluded that there was a significant association between its incidence and low family income. The suggestion in the Medical Research Council's report that the incidence was greatest in the artisan class is suppor ted by Wilson (1940) but denied by Morris and Titmuss. Bad housing has also been condemned as a cause of acute rheumatism, but the evidence incriminating dampness, ill-ventilation, living in basements, and other features is not clear. Overcrowding is often associated with bad housing, and some authorities have held this factor to be important. In the","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"3 1","pages":"29-41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1949-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/jech.3.1.29","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27155774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sir John Boyd Orr (1937) demonstrated that in the social and economic conditions prevailing in Great Britain during the nineteen-thirties one-tenth of the population was consuming food which was both insufficient in quantity and unsatisfactory in quality when compared with accepted dietary standards. This underfeeding was associated with much ill health and poor physical development. The outbreak of the 1939-45 war stimulated the Government into a large number of measures designed to control the distribution of food equitably and thereby to raise the level of health and the martial efficiency of the people. In this the Government appeared to achieve a great success, and the consensus of public opinion was that the limited food resources available throughout the period of the war were shared out equitably in relation to human needs. Further, the majority of expert opinion agreed that not only had the general health of the people not deteriorated as a result of the food restrictions, but in certain respects, notably as regards infant and maternal health, an improvement had taken place. Rationing, with its inconveniences and irksome restrictions, was accepted as inevitable while hostilities lasted. Many persons had, however, fostered the false hope that, with the cessation of fighting in 1945, food restrictions, too, would soon cease. But few people had realized the precarious position of international agriculture, even before the outbreak of hostilities, and the serious blows it received during the war. The damage to world trading also precluded any possibilities of an immediate, plenteous supply of food capable of meeting all demands. Indeed, in 1946-47 and in early 1948 the food situation ih this country deteriorated. A " dollar crisis " in the autumn of 1947 and a partial failure of our potato crop combined to make that winter perhaps the worst from a food point of view since 1939. It has now indeed become clear to almost all of us that food shortages are likely to persist for a long period and that restrictions are a feature of peace as well as of war. Now, rationing is no longer a military emergency measure and a complex governmental food-controlling machine has become a recognized part of peacetime economy. It is therefore important to devise means to study the machinery and its effect on food consumption and food habits. Experiences of other countries have shown that a rationing scheme may be one thing on paper and a very different affair in practice. The present survey was undertaken to find out how a group of people were in fact faring during the winter 1947-48. University undergraduates enjoyed no special privileges as regards food. All the special rations for schoolchildren cease at the eighteenth birthday, before most of the students have entered the University and also before many of the men have completed their growth and reached full stature. Further, university students who live at home or in lodgings do not receive the benefits of
{"title":"Studies of the diet of students at Edinburgh University.","authors":"A H KITCHIN, R PASSMORE","doi":"10.1136/jech.3.1.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.3.1.10","url":null,"abstract":"Sir John Boyd Orr (1937) demonstrated that in the social and economic conditions prevailing in Great Britain during the nineteen-thirties one-tenth of the population was consuming food which was both insufficient in quantity and unsatisfactory in quality when compared with accepted dietary standards. This underfeeding was associated with much ill health and poor physical development. The outbreak of the 1939-45 war stimulated the Government into a large number of measures designed to control the distribution of food equitably and thereby to raise the level of health and the martial efficiency of the people. In this the Government appeared to achieve a great success, and the consensus of public opinion was that the limited food resources available throughout the period of the war were shared out equitably in relation to human needs. Further, the majority of expert opinion agreed that not only had the general health of the people not deteriorated as a result of the food restrictions, but in certain respects, notably as regards infant and maternal health, an improvement had taken place. Rationing, with its inconveniences and irksome restrictions, was accepted as inevitable while hostilities lasted. Many persons had, however, fostered the false hope that, with the cessation of fighting in 1945, food restrictions, too, would soon cease. But few people had realized the precarious position of international agriculture, even before the outbreak of hostilities, and the serious blows it received during the war. The damage to world trading also precluded any possibilities of an immediate, plenteous supply of food capable of meeting all demands. Indeed, in 1946-47 and in early 1948 the food situation ih this country deteriorated. A \" dollar crisis \" in the autumn of 1947 and a partial failure of our potato crop combined to make that winter perhaps the worst from a food point of view since 1939. It has now indeed become clear to almost all of us that food shortages are likely to persist for a long period and that restrictions are a feature of peace as well as of war. Now, rationing is no longer a military emergency measure and a complex governmental food-controlling machine has become a recognized part of peacetime economy. It is therefore important to devise means to study the machinery and its effect on food consumption and food habits. Experiences of other countries have shown that a rationing scheme may be one thing on paper and a very different affair in practice. The present survey was undertaken to find out how a group of people were in fact faring during the winter 1947-48. University undergraduates enjoyed no special privileges as regards food. All the special rations for schoolchildren cease at the eighteenth birthday, before most of the students have entered the University and also before many of the men have completed their growth and reached full stature. Further, university students who live at home or in lodgings do not receive the benefits of ","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"3 1","pages":"10-28"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1949-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/jech.3.1.10","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"27157007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Maternity in Great Britain","authors":"F. Crew","doi":"10.1136/JECH.2.4.153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/JECH.2.4.153","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"2 1","pages":"153 - 154"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1948-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/JECH.2.4.153","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63774922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Textbook of the Rheumatic Diseases","authors":"F. Crew","doi":"10.1136/JECH.2.4.154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/JECH.2.4.154","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":84321,"journal":{"name":"British journal of social medicine","volume":"2 1","pages":"154 - 155"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1948-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1136/JECH.2.4.154","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63774968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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