Causes of Child Mortality in Yekaterinburg at the Turn of the 20th Century: Classification Experience

Abstract

This article aims to identify the main causes of child mortality in late imperial urban Russia with reference to Yekaterinburg, a peripheral but economically developed and rapidly growing regional centre characterised by the typical problems of European cities of the turn of the twentieth century, such as overpopulation, very basic sanitation, and lack of medical personnel and infrastructure. The research is done with reference to records of child deaths from the church books of two Orthodox parishes in Yekaterinburg, i.e. Ascension and Epiphany between 1880 and 1919, comprising 7187 records, which are an integral part of the Ural Population Project database (URAPP). The authors divide the records in accordance with the international historical death causes classification developed by European historical demographers, including 1) deaths caused by infections; 2) noncommunicable diseases; 3) causes described by outdated popular terms; 4) deaths caused by external factors; 5) illegible records; 6) missing causes. The study reveals a low involvement of professional physicians in the mortality registration: fewer than 4 % of child deaths were certified by doctors. In Yekaterinburg, this duty was performed by the clergy, and in contrast to European cities of the turn of the twentieth century, an indication of the specific cause of death was stated in almost all the records. The analysis of the Yekaterinburg data shows that infectious diseases accounted for to 65 % of child deaths; diseases described by means of obsolete terms caused 28 % of child deaths; and noncommunicable diseases accounted for 7 % of deaths among young Yekaterinburg residents. Deaths due to external causes amounted to less than one percent.