Heilbrigðisskýrslur - 01.12.1938, Page 184

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VIII. Health Conditions in Iceland.
Medieval Conditions in Public Health Affairs until Recent Times.
When we estimate the present state of public health in Iceland
\ve must take into consideration how very short a tiine it is since
the state of these affairs was in most respects truly medieval. The Ice-
landers, like other nations, have ghastty stories to tell from the real
middle ages, when the black death scoured the country at the be-
ginning of the 15th century kitling about one-third of the popula-
tion. It returned to the country towards the end of the same century
causing a great deal of darnage and death. About twentv years later
a deadly plague of smallpox raged in the country killing thousands
ot' people. All these plagues together with want and starvation due to
volcanic eruptions and polar ice, aided by trade monopolies and for-
eign mismanagement, dragged the people who had in former times
possessed such remarkable culture, down into the quagmire of intel-
lectual and physical distress, which all but proved fatal to the whole
nation. Its struggle against death will be most clearly seen if we
observe how it fared at various times, as its life is reflected in the
number of inhabitants. In the year 1703 the first general census was
taken in Iceland and then the population proved to be just over 50.000
which is much less, and in the opinion of some scholars even only
half as much as it had been at its hest. In spite of a very high birth-
rate, most often 30-—40%o and even 50%c in some years, there were
fewer inhabitants at the beginning of the 19th century than there
had been at the beginning of the 18th. Misery, insufficient and poor
housing conditions, still worse sanitary conditions, lack of food which
sometimes even led to death from stai-vation, endemic diseases
(leprosy, hydatids and tetanus in children) and tater epidemics,
which killed off the people like flies, not only destroyed on a scale
corresponding to that of the birth-rate but went far in excess of that.
During' the first decade of the 18th century there raged an epidemic
of smallpox which killed about one-third of the population and
late in the same century there was a famine that caused a Iarge
nuinber of deaths. Conditions similar to those lasted well into the
19th century except for the fact that the Asiatic plagues were Iess
prominent, hecause even if smallpox happened to come to the country,
it was either comj)letely suj)pressed or it only spread very slightly as
hy this time vaccination hy Jenner’s method had begun. During the
first three decades of the century the population may still be said
to have remained stationary; although it then began to increase very
slowly, there were tiines, even whole decades, when the population
made no progress, and occasional years in which it directly decreased.
The sanitary conditions may indeed be said to have remained un-
altered until towards the last quarter of the century. The child death
rate still remained tremendous. Down to the middle of the century
one-third of all the children who were born, died in their first year
and in some years as many as one half and even up to two-thirds of