Abstract
Child health in the United Kingdom has improved greatly during the 20th century [1]. The reasons are a compound of improved social conditions, smaller families, public health measures and medical advances. It is only this century that children’s development and medicine has been studied on a scientific basis. The extent to which the major advances in the understanding of child illness and effective medical, surgical and psychological treatments have by themselves contributed to the great improvement in health statistics is impossible to quantify. The concept of child health services, paediatricians, children’s nurses and therapists was rudimentary at the start of the century, but we now see a radically different use of much improved medical facilities.
In 1900 in terms of its children’s health Britain was an underdeveloped country. Then, 150 of every 1000 children died without reaching their first birthday.
Joseph & McKeith 1966
In 1994 the figure for England and Wales was 6.1 per 1000.
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Ross, E.M., Rigby, M., While, A. (1998). The development of British child health services. In: Rigby, M., Ross, E.M., Begg, N.T. (eds) Management for Child Health Services. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3144-3_1
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