Medicine, science and nursing care - Essay Example

Factors causing both psychological and physical disease and ill-health between the 19th and 20th Century and how these have been reduced or eliminated by improvements in medicine, science and nursing careIntroductionMany of the leading causes of mortality during the turn of the century occurred mostly in children and infants with it reaching as high as "eighteen percent of children dying before reaching the age of five with the rates being highest among ethnic children, children living in cities and children of immigrants".

1 (Farrell, 34) During this period of time, known as colonial, the leading causes of death were respiratory diseases, infectious diseases and gastrointestinal diseases.Colonial Times - Mortality FactorsThere were many factors involving these high percentages of death was due in part with the social classes of the victims, poverty levels, as well as ethnicity of the children all affected their receipt, or lack of, health care. The major causes of mortality, especially those among the immigrant or native children, would see that many of these children living in rural areas could expect to find that one out of every three children would die prior to reach school-age.

The major factors involving the high mortality rates centred around a lack of much of the care that most families receive today, these included, but not limited to, "poor prenatal care, the ill health of the mother, no access to medical advice, inadequate diets and exhausted, overworked mothers. [West] further explains that children were in danger because medical authorities were ignorant about the causes, nature, and treatments of the diseases with many citizens not having access to licensed doctors" (West, 54-55, 57, 60)Twentieth Century- Mortality FactorsWith the time passages toward the 20th century, where many medical advances had been made, such as the polio and smallpox vaccine, there were still deaths occurring, especially in small children, that centred around hunger-associated diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria which to this day are still not reduced and if anything are escalating.

The NHS in Scotland report by Kerr (2005) shows a changing pattern of "mortality and disease over the last two centuries which is broadly similar to that of other industrial nations and that Scotland has experienced its own version of what is commonly called the 'epidemiological transition'" (31) Kerr (2005) also states that within the patterns of ill-health displayed, "the late 19th Century and the first half of the 20th Century saw a pattern of disease associated with rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, with high levels of childhood mortality and a high prevalence of infectious disease" (31).

ConclusionIt is an ongoing problem of globalisation and urban sprawl that is leading many larger cities to experience great instances of childhood illnesses that should otherwise be curable and lead to lesser instances of infectious diseases, but, this is not the case.Kerr (2005) writes that "as these scourges were conquered in the first half of the 20th Century, and as the population has become older, the major burden of ill health facing the health services is increasingly that of chronic disease, reflective of global patterns" (31).

Works CitedFarrell, Betty, G. Family, the Making of an Idea, and Institution, and a Controversy in American Culture, Boulder, Westview Press, 1999.Kerr. 2005. Building A Health Service: Fit For the Future. NHS Scotland. http://www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/ssa/getuserfile.phpid=95Moore, Barbara, E. American Childhood Through The Years: Colonial Era, 18th Century Through Early 19th Century, and Progressive Era. [Thesis]. 2006. http://dscholar.humboldt.edu:8080/dspace/bitstream/2148/56/1/Moore.pdfWest, Elliott.

Growing Up in Twentieth Century America, A History and Reference Guide, Westport, Greenwood Press, 1996.