The mortality of two groups of infants in Spanish rural region.

In this study the structure of the mortality of two groups of infants settled in the same environmental context is analysed: the comarca (a typical Spanish sub-division of territory) of La Cabrera (province of León, Spain) between the years 1880 and 1932. In this geographical region of the northwest of Spain two communities of infants from different origins are found in this time period. On the one hand, an autochthonous infant population from the births of the legitimately constituted families settled in this territory. On the other, an infant population represented by a group of children who were abandoned in a foundling hospital situated in a nearby city (Ponferrada) and who were sent to this rural "comarca" to be breast-fed by wet-nurses being paid certain quantities of money. The mortality rates and the seasonality of the deaths have been analysed for both the autochthonous and non-autochthonous children. Thus we have been able to test whether differences in the structure of mortality exist. Throughout the study, the possibility that these differences in mortality could be attributed to discriminative cultural factors, expressed through preferential care and/or attention and which show in the different models of infant mortality, is considered.