This article analyzes food and nutrition as factors that caused the high infant mortality rates in Santiago between the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The applied method approaches the process recognizing the role of mothers, artificial feeding and the installation of institutions that tried to diminish these figures.The development of the study maintains that the poor hygiene standards in the handling of products and the lack of maternal care in newborns affected deaths during the first year of life. The main historical sources of consultation were the press and medical journals. The conclusions emphasize the emergence of Chilean pediatrics as a field of knowledge about health in childhood, improvements in diet and the formation of an institutional framework that allowed to reduce, in the twentieth century, the very high infant mortality.
Keywords:
Alimentación, Nutrición, Mortalidad infantil, Santiago, Pediatría, Madre
Author Biography
Pablo Chávez Zúñiga, Universidad de Chile
Doctor en Historia, Universidad de Chile. Correo electrónico: pablo.chavez.zuniga@gmail.com
Chávez Zúñiga, P. (2020). Child mortality: between food and gastrointestinal diseases in Santiago (1880-1920). Cuadernos De Historia, (52), pp. 69–101. Retrieved from https://actabioethica.uchile.cl/index.php/CDH/article/view/57537
