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

We could summarize that in Sweden due to the Lutheran Church's effort to teach every one to read the Bible resulted in almost universal literacy in the 19

th century whereas in Hungary we find very big differences in literacy between the nationalities and genders. Economy Sweden has always been more prosperous than Hungary. Good (1997) calculated the GDP data before World War 1 from other variables such as the crude death rate, the share of occupation in non-agricultural sectors from the labor force and mailed items per capita. We shall note that since the death rate is one of the sources of the estimation, this can be a source of bias. Noting this, if we consider the UK's GDP as reference as 100, the Swedish GDP was 48.2, 48.3 and 60.0 in 1870, 1890 respectively in 1910. The Hungarian data was 22.6, 26.3 and 35.3 in the same years. The GDP per capita of Hungary, in international dollars at the rate of year 1980, had been growing from 450 in 1870 to 1011 in 1910. Comparing the GDP of the Hungarian regions they varied from 526 in Transylvania to 949 in the region between the Danube and the Tisza in 1890. These differences remained during 18701910. (Good, 1997) The gap between different social groups in Stockholm widened with regard to child mortality at the end of the nineteenth century. (Burström, Bernhardt, 2001) The composition of a parish in Stockholm with regard to the parents socio-economic class can be found and analysed from the Roteman Archive. Burström and Bernhardt (2001) showed that 78% of children who died in the Maria parish in Stockholm in the years 1885, 1891 and 1910 could be categorised into four classes: 19% belonged to the upper and middle class, 9,8% belonged to the employees in the service sector, 23,6% belonged to the craftsmen and 47,6% belonged to manual workers. The rest, approximately 22% was categorised in a heterogeneous group whose parents could not be classified in the abovementioned classes. There were no differences between mortality among breast-fed infants in any of the social-economic groups but there were differences among dry-fed infants. (Johansson, 1919) As we have seen it is hard to find reliable comparable data on economy in either country from the 19

th century, although estimations suggest a modest decrease of the differences between them. On the other hand in the future we have to discuss the redistribution issue instead of the GDP. Other influential factors Beyond differences in the socio-economic status it can be interesting to analyse other influential distal factors of IMR like the political system. If we consider the alcohol consumption, which in itself affects the infants directly, we could notice how the politics' regulation is able to reduce the widespread unhealthy habits obvious effects on the childrens health. These problems were enormous in both countries. Without having any comparable data we can mention the following. According to Högberg (1983) alcohol consumption in Sweden was estimated to 46 litre spirits per year per person in 1829. Restrictions were introduced in form of high taxes in 1855. Temperance movements were established and a rationing system was used to dimin-