>In only his lifetime Sweden went from having an infant mortality rate similar to that of the poorest countries today, to being one of the world leaders.

This simply isn't true. Between 1900 and 1905, Sweden's infant mortality rate was merely 2.3 per 1,000 live births [1] which is basically the same as they currently report (2.6 per 1,000 [2]) according to the CIA world factbook. Compare that with Lesotho's rate of 46.1 per 1,000 [2] and it's plain to aee that comparison is completely unfounded. Today's poorest countries have rates in the 60-80 range despite the best efforts of the Western world to share the basic knowledge which caused such a precipitous decline in infant mortality post-1850 with those nations.

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448444/

[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_...