This article estimates the mortality effects of introducing modern health professionals in rural Finnish municipalities in the years 1880 to 1938 using panel data with approximately 25,000 observations over 423 population clusters. Our results show that ambulatory nurses had a more significant impact on mortality than municipal doctors. The effect of doctors depended on their proximity to the population. Qualitative evidence suggests that a superior capacity to influence behavior in communities mattered more than treatment or medical knowledge in the pre-biomedical context. Doctors consequently advocated for the hiring of more nurses. Their estimated contribution to mortality decline still remained modest.

中文翻译：

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护士、医生和死亡率：1880-1938 年芬兰农村早期卫生专业人员的有效性

本文使用面板数据估算了 1880 年至 1938 年间在芬兰农村地区引入现代卫生专业人员对死亡率的影响，该数据包含 423 个人口集群中约 25,000 个观察结果。我们的结果表明，门诊护士对死亡率的影响比市政医生更显着。医生的效果取决于他们与民众的距离。定性证据表明，在前生物医学背景下，影响社区行为的卓越能力比治疗或医学知识更重要。因此，医生们主张雇用更多的护士。他们对死亡率下降的估计贡献仍然不大。