Major medical explanations for high infant mortality in nineteenth-century Europe.

Statistics initially developed as a recognized field in the social sciences in the middle of the nineteenth century. The European medical profession first made use of mounting statistical evidence to dramatize infant mortality, one of the great social problems of the century. Those telling statistics amply demonstrated the general proportions of the problem as well as pinpointing the fact that a large percentage of the dying was neonatal in character. The medical profession also insisted that these infants were passing away from a series of ailments. Number one on their list was what they called debility, followed by respiratory disorders, gastro-intestinal problems, and convulsions. While nineteenth-century European medicine did not necessarily solve this social problem, it did evidently convince the larger society that these high tolls were morally unacceptable.