Özet:

Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives during the period starting with the War of Tripoli and ending with the National Struggle, and many more were left out of the active labor force. Therefore, one of the main problems that Republican Turkey had to solve was the issue of population. For the newly established nation state, the continuity of the state and the regime depended on the new generations to be raised. The first step in increasing the population and making it more qualified was to effectively combat the high infant mortality rate. Therefore, the country's intellectuals, health officials and politicians focused on solving the problem in cooperation. In order to reduce the rate of child mortality, various legal arrangements were made and the public was enlightened on the issue. After identifying the causes of the problem, efforts were made to combat various epidemics that caused child mortality. This struggle began to bear its first fruits as of the early 1930s, and significant decreases were observed in child mortality rates. However, it became clear that there was still a long way to go to reach the desired level. Based on the fact that the child constituted both the labor force that would ensure the future of the state and the driving force of the qualitative change in the population, the problem of child mortality was one of the most important issues that the early Republican cadres focused on. This study traces the dimensions of this problem and the legal, socio-cultural, medical and economic steps taken to solve it, while also questioning the effectiveness of the measures taken. In the preparation of the article, newspapers and magazines of the period and the Presidential Republican Archive were used as the main reference sources. In addition, for the texts of legal regulations, the relevant copies of the official gazette were utilized. The study is expected to contribute to the literature on health and child research in the early Republican period.

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