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In 1925, Van Buskirk and Mills attempted to compile accurate statistics of infant and child
death in Korea, but their results were unsatisfactory due to poor social conditions and an
inadequate health organization.
Despite poor conditions after Liberation, Yun, Park, Won and Cha reported some statistics of
infant and child death that enable us to know something of the problem then.
Their figures depended on clinical symptoms and courses which were expected to develop while
the patients were living, so the reliability of their figures was questionable and was not applicable
to the present situation due to the changes in social conditions and development.
After the publication of a study o£ infant and child death in the department of pediatrics of
Severance Hospital by Kim et al. in 1965, statistics have been compiled for several hospitals in Seoul.
The author has analyzed infant and child mortality of admitted cases in Wonju Christian Hospital, most of which have come from remote areas of Kangwondo, and has tried to correlate the
figures to studies in Seoul. The author obtained statistics on 317 patients who died among 3605
patients admitted to the department of pediatrics of Wonju Christian Hospital and classified them
according to annual, monthly, sex and age incidence, underlying diseases and fatality rate during
the past 10 years.
The results were as follows;
1. The mortality rate among the total admitted patients was 8.8%.
2. Amog the admitted patients 68. 2% were amleand 31.8% were female.
3. Infants under one year of age comprised 33.7% of the admissions and 44.5% of the mortalities.
4. Of the mortalities, 71% died within 48 hours after admission.
5. Among the admissions, the most frequent disease was gastroenteritis (14.2%), followed by
pneumonia (11.2%), tuberculosis (10.1%) and mensngitis (5.5%).
6. The most frequent cause of death was pneumonia( ll. 0%), follow by meningitis (10.prematurity (9.1%),
tuberculosis (8.8%) and septicemia (6.6%).
7. The case fatality by disease showed encephalitis (57.1%), birth trauma (47.1 %), neonatal
tetanus (37.5%), septicemia (36.8%) and congenital anomaly (24.4%).
8. Causes of death according to age were as follows;
A. In neonatal period; The most frequent cause of death was prematurity (33.0%), followed
by neonatal tetanus (13.6%), and congenital anomaly (11.4%).
B. From 1 to 12 months of age; The most frequent cause of death was pneumonia (28.3%)
followed by meningitis (11.3%).
C. 1 year of age; The most frequent caues of death was gastroenteritis (17.19%).
D. From 2 to 5 years of age; The most frequent caues of death was tuberculosis (12. 5%)
followed by pneumonia (15.9%).
E. From 6 to 10 years of age; The most frequent causes of death were meningitis and encpehalitis
(14.5%, respectively).
F. From 11 to 15 years of age; The most frequent cause of death was meningitis (23.3%)，
followed by encephalitis and accident (10. respectively).
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