Heilbrigðisskýrslur - 01.12.1935, Qupperneq 217

ing from sarcoma. On page 70 these malignant tumors are classi-
fied according to location. Notification of cancer patients is still very
defective, as may be seen from the fact, that the number of registered
deaths from cancer is greater than the number of notified cases.
10. School-Inspection. In Iceland an obligatory medical examination
of all school-children takes place at the beginning of each session,
especiallv with regard to tuberculosis. At the same time the sanitary
condition of the schools is inspected and all matters bearing upon
the health of the children are looked into. The inspection is under-
taken by the district medical officers. In Reykjavik, however, there
are special school medical officers. Table IX shows the result of
school inspection in the whole country except Reykjavik, comprising
8369 children.
11. Maternity (see tahles XI—XIII). The total number of births
in 1935 was: 2551 born alive and 57 stillborn, or 21,5%„ of the total
number.
Deaths from accidents of childbirth and puerperal sepsis during
the preceding year have been as follows:
1!)2H 1927 1928 192!) 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935
Accidents of Childbirth ......... 4 8 7 10 4 R 7 4 6 7
Puerperal Sepsis ................ 1 3 3 1 5 3 1 3 2 3
Total Number of Deaths .......... 5 11 10 11 9 9 8 7 8 10
The death rate 1935 is 3,9 per 1000 children born alive. The distri-
bution of accidents of childbirth is as follows: Puerperal haemorrhage
2, other accidents of childbirth 5.
12. Artificial abortion.
In May 1935 the Birth Control and Foeticide Act came into opera-
tion. According to the provisions of the Act it is the duty of physi-
cians who, when examining a woman patient, discover that pregnancy
may prove dangerous to her, to call her attention to the fact and to
give her contraceptive advice. Doctors are moreover free to give
contraceptive advice to any woman consulting them in such matters.
Further the Act lays down rules for foeticide, and empowers physi-
cians to resort to such measures subject to certain conditions (special
approved hospitals etc.), provided that medical indications justify
such operation, but in weighing the medical indications social condi-
tions may be taken into consideration, thus insufficient health indica-
tions will justify the measure if there are social reasons as well. In
1935 (May—December) 26 abortions were procured under the Birth
Control and Foeticide Act; in 8 cases out of 26, that is in 30,8% of
the cases, social conditions were taken into consideration. Table XI
gives a detailed account of these operations. In recent years abor-
tions had been procured on an increasing scale under various pretexts,,
without the persons concerned being brought to justice. It has there-
fore exited special attention that the first effect of the new law is a
considerable decline in tlie number of abortions carried out.
13. Care of infants. Infant mortality is on the whole very Iow in