‘That welfare warfare'

Infant mortality rates fell remarkably in northern and western Europe between the 1870s and 1950. European peoples outside Europe, including Australia and New Zealand, were also affected by the infant mortality decline. From the late nineteenth century, in a common pattern, infant mortality ‘drop[ped] like a stone’. ¹ There were considerable disparities, however, in the timing and course of the transition to lower rates between and within countries.