Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 202-205. (Budapest, 2008)

TANULMÁNYOK — ARTICLES - VARGA, Gabriella: A comparative study of the social-political determinants of infant and child mortality in Sweden and Hungary 1850-1945. - Összehasonlító tanulmány a svéd és a magyar csecsemőhalandóság szociálpolitikai tényezőiről 1850 és 1945 között

regulation towards the infants might have good effects as like to make sure that there are health care workers out in the countryside as well. Hungary Sweden 1697 - study book for midwives 1708 - education of midwives «uilds for midwives - 1738 written guidelines for midwives - 1766 education of midwives - 1770s study book for midwives - 1772 1816 - compulsory smallpox vaccination 1819 - central education of midwives 1829 - midwives use instruments 1830 - breastfeeding campaigns 1842 - primary school is compulsory 1861 - the beginning of the introduction of piped water primary school is compulsory - 1868 1881 - midwives use antiseptic techniques compulsory smallpox vaccination - 1887 1902 - foster child law Society for Protection of children - 1906 1917 - law for children out of wedlock Table 1. Differences in measures and their implementation which are possible explanations of differences in the IMR in Sweden and Hungary before 1945 Discussion In this chapter we follow the same structure as in the Results chapter. The IMR for the whole country started to decline much earlier in Sweden, 1810, than in Hungary, 1870s. It is difficult to find the exact data for Hungary time series existed from 1870s. In the 19

th century we could find an inversion of urban/rural ratio. In Sweden before 1920, cities had higher IMR than the countryside, whereas in Hungary this was just the opposite. Comparing the capitals risk groups the patterns are very similar, the risk to die if the mother was unmarried is about 2 times higher in both of the cities. Relative risk to die for children of unmarried Swedish mothers is only a little higher than for the same group in Hungary. In the middle of the 19

th century Swedish statistics show a higher proportion (3540%) of children born out of wedlock than in Hungary. We must consider the fact that many of the unmarried mothers in Swedish statistics have lived in a partnership (some sources refer to this as "Stockholm marriage") without being married. In those cases mothers and