6. High Infant and Child Mortality
In Victorian England, child mortality rates were alarmingly high due to poor medical care, disease, and hazardous living environments. In the 1840s, 153 children per 1,000 died within the first year of life, and by the 1890s, this figure rose to 163 per 1,000 due to epidemics. Between 1860 and 1870, half of all deaths of children under 5 were attributed to diphtheria, a disease which is no longer heard about as all children are inoculated against it. In the 1890s, half of all deaths of children under 5 in industrial areas were caused by TB. This disease was almost eradicated but is worryingly making a return in the modern world with some strains being antibiotic resistant. One of the most distressing statistics was the fact that in the 1900s in Liverpool, 507 children died per 1,000 because of overcrowded living conditions in a very densely populated city, lack of sanitation and clean water, poor food, and generally poor living conditions (fenlandfhs.org.uk).
