The Colony of Medicine

2021 ◽  
pp. 245-258
Author(s):  
John Parker
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
Individual Life ◽  
Attitudes Towards Death ◽  
Denial Of Death ◽  
Infants And Young Children

This chapter looks into Ghana's significant change which affected the whole of Africa: the continent's population had begun to increase dramatically by the middle of the twentieth century. The chapter shows the demographic historians' arguments over the reason for this, some pointing to rising birth rates and others to falling death rates. While available evidence suggests that in most regions women's fertility levels remained broadly the same over the first half of the century, there are indications of an accelerating decline in mortality rates, particularly among infants and young children. Yet the overall impact is clear: Africans were, on average, living longer and dying older. The chapter turns to discuss a crucial factor in the increasing denial of death: modern medicine. As individual life expectancy and the overall population in the Gold Coast begun to increase dramatically, the chapter examines how these changes impacted upon attitudes towards death and upon the experience of dying.

scholarly journals Modern Medicine and the Twentieth Century Decline in Mortality: Evidence on the Impact of Sulfa Drugs

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seema Jayachandran ◽  
Adriana Lleras-Muney ◽  
Kimberly V Smith
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Time Series ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Scarlet Fever ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Medical Innovation ◽  
Sulfa Drugs ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Percent Decline

This paper studies the contribution of sulfa drugs, a groundbreaking medical innovation in the 1930s, to declines in US mortality. For several infectious diseases, sulfa drugs represented the first effective treatment. Using time-series and difference-in-differences methods, we find that sulfa drugs led to a 24 to 36 percent decline in maternal mortality, 17 to 32 percent decline in pneumonia mortality, and 52 to 65 percent decline in scarlet fever mortality between 1937 and 1943. Altogether, sulfa drugs reduced mortality by 2 to 3 percent and increased life expectancy by 0.4 to 0.7 years. We also find that sulfa drugs benefited whites more than blacks. (JEL I12, L65, N32, N72)

INFANT AND CHILD MORTALITY AMONG CATHOLICS AND LUTHERANS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY POZNAŃ

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 661-683 ◽  
Author(s):  
GRAŻYNA LICZBIŃSKA
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Child Mortality ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
Ecological Conditions ◽  
Causes Of Deaths ◽  
The City ◽  
Infants And Young Children

SummaryThe purpose of this study was to show the differences in the mortality rates of children from Catholic and Lutheran families in 19th century Poznań, and to elucidate the causes of these differences. Data from Catholic and Lutheran parish death registers were used. The infant death rate (IDR), neonatal and postneonatal death rates and life table biometric functions were calculated and causes of deaths were characterized. The worst child mortality values (IDR=394.4; neonatal and postneonatal death rates, respectively, 117.1 and 277.4; e0=16.14 years; Crow's Index=2.47) were obtained for the poor Catholic Parish of St Margaret. The lowest infant and neonatal and postneonatal death rates were observed to have occurred in the Catholic Parish of St Maria Magdalena situated in the city's more affluent central area (mortality rates, respectively, 269.9, 93.1 and 176.9; e0=24.63 years; Crow's Index=0.96). The widest range of differences with regard to death rates was found for the Lutheran Parish of St Cross (the infant, neonatal and postneonatal death rates were, respectively, 293.1, 99.1 and 193.9; e0=28.03 years; Crow's Index=0.92). The St Cross Parish encompassed a fairly large area of the city characterized by varying ecological conditions. Among infants and young children from the three studied populations a high frequency of deaths due to infectious diseases, diarrhoeas, dysenteries and tuberculosis were observed. Differences in the mortality of children from Catholic and Lutheran families in 19th century Poznań resulted from ecological conditions, among which water played the most important role, rather than from religious differences.

scholarly journals Changes in life expectancy due to avoidable and non-avoidable deaths in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2000-2011

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Dávila-Cervantes ◽  
Marcela Agudelo-Botero
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Information Source ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Population Data ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Vital Statistics ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
Avoidable Deaths ◽  
Avoidable Death

Abstract: The objective of this study was to analyze the level and trend of avoidable deaths and non-avoidable deaths and their contribution to the change in life expectancy in Latin America by studying the situations in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico between the years 2000 and 2011, stratified by sex and 5-year age groups. The information source used in this study was the mortality vital statistics, and the population data were obtained from censuses or estimates. The proposal by Nolte & McKee (2012) was used to calculate the standardized mortality rates and the influence from avoidable and non-avoidable causes in the change in life expectancy between 0 and 74 years. In Argentina, Chile and Colombia, all the rates declined between the years 2000 and 2011, whereas in Mexico, the avoidable deaths and non-avoidable deaths rates increased slightly for men and decreased for women. In all the countries, the non-avoidable death rates were higher than the avoidable death rates, and the rates were higher for men. The largest contributions to changes in life expectancy were explained by the non-avoidable deaths for men in all countries and for women in Argentina; in contrast, in Chile, Colombia and Mexico, the gains in years of life expectancy for women were mainly a result of avoidable causes. The results suggest there have been reductions in mortality from these causes that have resulted in gains in years of life expectancy in the region. Despite these achievements, differences between countries, sex and age groups are still present, without any noticeable progress in the reduction of these inequalities until now.

Bonding with the Baby

2019 ◽  
pp. 56-77
Author(s):  
Lara Freidenfelds
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Infant Mortality ◽  
Early Pregnancy ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
First Century ◽  
Early Pregnancy Loss ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
Late Twentieth

Over the course of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, parents gradually focused less on the patriarchal, religious, and economic duties and benefits of parenthood and more on developing loving relationships with children. This change in sentiment took place before modern medicine and public health would seem to justify it. Infants continued to perish at appalling rates even as parents came to mourn their losses with more evident anguish and less fatalistic resignation. Public health and medicine finally caught up during the twentieth century, as infant mortality rates decreased substantially. Over the generations, traditional economic and religious justifications for parenting diminished, and parents focused increasingly on their emotional relationship with their children. In the late twentieth and twenty-first century, the emotional focus of parenting continued to intensify. It also expanded into the months before birth, where it would clash with the biological reality of frequent early pregnancy loss.

scholarly journals Trends in Mortality in Puerto Rico Between 1979 and 2018: An Analysis of the Puerto Rico Healthcare Reform

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 105-105
Author(s):  
Alexis Santos
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Infant Mortality ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Healthcare Reform ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
The Government ◽  
Role Of The Government

Abstract Between 1993 and 2000, the Government of Puerto Rico decided to transform the role of the government from a provider of healthcare to an insurer. Despite claims about the success of the reform, no study has assessed whether it improved the health of the population or reduced mortality. The aim of this study is to assess whether the implementation of the Puerto Rico Healthcare Reform of 1993 reduced mortality and infant mortality in Puerto Rico in a significant way. I calculated crude death rates (CDR), age-standardized death rates, infant mortality rates, total deaths and life expectancy between 1980 and 2018. I used a quasi-experimental design to study the effect of the implementation of the Puerto Rico Healthcare Reform on these indicators. The primary objective was to estimate changes in trends after 2000. The Age-Specific Mortality Rates have reduced since 1980. The least pronounced change for 2018, in comparison to 1980, was for young adults (20-24 years, 25-29 years, and 30-34 years). The CDR was affected based on the implementation of the reform, but the Infant Mortality Rates was not. The Standardized Death Rate and deaths indicate that there was a small reduction in these indicators. I also found that the gains in life expectancy were concentrated in older adults (aged 65 and older). Analysis of all-cause mortality indicators allows for the evaluation of this healthcare reform. The reduction in mortality in the post-2000 period was not entirely due to the trend that existed before the healthcare reform was implemented.

The Good Enough Father

The Group ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald L. Rosenstein ◽  
Justin M. Yopp
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Medical School ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
World War ◽  
Donald Winnicott ◽  
Infants And Young Children

Donald Winnicott served in World War I and graduated from medical school before he reached the age of twenty-four. He accepted a position at London’s Paddington Green Children’s Hospital where he would work as a pediatrician for the next four decades. Early in his career, he became fascinated with theories of emotional development in infants and young children and subsequently trained to be a psychoanalyst. After observing thousands of interactions between young children and their mothers, Winnicott became convinced that the best way for parents to promote their children’s psychological health was to help them navigate interpersonal relationships. Ultimately, he became one of the most influential psychoanalysts of the twentieth century. Perhaps Winnicott’s most enduring insight is the notion of the “good enough mother.” His fundamental precept was that perfect parenting is neither possible nor desirable and that children benefit most when their caregivers do not immediately respond to each and every demand. He maintained that this approach teaches children to tolerate frustration and disappointment. Additionally, when children are allowed to fail in small and manageable ways, they learn to self-soothe and develop the competence to negotiate an imperfect world. Thus, the “good enough” parent is preferable to the “perfect” parent who aims (and inevitably fails) to meet his or her child’s every desire. Recognizing that most caregivers possess the necessary instincts and interpersonal resources to care for their children, Winnicott championed the notion of the “good enough mother” to promote more realistic parental expectations and remind caregivers that children can thrive with loving, competent but “imperfect” parents. This simple but profound idea would prove extremely valuable to the fathers in our group. In Part II, we address four broad challenges that the seven men faced: assuming sole responsibility for all parenting and household duties; helping their children grieve the loss of their mothers; coping with their own grief; and taking steps to move forward with their lives. Every one of them found that the most pressing initial tasks were adapting to sole parenting and managing the home.

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