Recovery From Schizophrenia: Psychiatry And Political Economy

HEALTH, ILLNESS AND THE ECONOMY 41Figure 2.1 Five-year changes in the US unemployment index (inverted) and the neonatalmortality rate per 1,000 live births. Neonatal mortality is moved forward four years toshow the relationship with a four-year lagSource: Reproduced from Brenner, M.H., “Fetal, infant and maternal mortality duringperiods of economic instability,” International Journal of Health Services, 3:145–59, 1973, bypermission of the publisher.The reason for this effect, maintained the philanthropists and physicians of thetime, was the employment of mothers. In the industrial areas of Victorian Englanda very large proportion of young married women were employed in the factoriesfrom dawn to dusk—or longer. Female factory hands returned to work withintwo weeks of the birth of a child, frequently leaving the infant in the care ofelderly child-minders or girls as young as seven years of age. Fatal accidents toinfants in the care of incompetent minders were not uncommon. Laudanum andother widely available preparations of morphia were freely used to quiet fractiousbabies. Early weaning was essential and infants were routinely fed with watereddownand often contaminated milk. Deaths from intestinal infection wereprevalent. 71Physicians pointed out that infant mortality was highest where more womenwere employed in the factories. Around the Lancashire cotton mills the death ratewas particularly high, and the Medical Office of Health for Staffordshire offeredthe following figures for 1880. 72There is another reason—one that is particularly relevant to the topic of thisbook—why infant mortality may increase during the boom. Women who areraised in poverty have poor nutrition in childhood and are consequently small instature and likely to have small pelvic cavities and birth canals that are malformedby rickets (vitamin D deficiency). During the boom, their nutrition is likely to