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14
The Causes of Infantile Mortality.—Some of the causes of
infantile mortality are common to almost every locality. The
chief of such common causes may be named:
1. Prematurity of birth and physical defects at birth. The
excessive mortality of the first month is almost entirely
due to these causes, coupled with debility, feeble vitality,
and starvation.
2. Hereditary tendencies, such as Syphilis.
3. Careless nursing, inexperience and neglect of parents.
4. Industrial conditions, especially the industrial employment
of mothers.
5. Insanitary conditions.
6. Improper Food. When improper feeding is a factor a large
proportion of the deaths are due to Diarrhoea. In relation
to this matter the following statement from the last Report
of Dr. Hope, the Medical Officer of Health for Liverpool,
may be quoted:- "The deaths amongst children under 3
"months of age, either wholly or partially fed on artificial
"foods are 15 times as great as they are amongst an equal
"number of infants fed upon breast milk, e.g., investigation
"has tended to prove that out of every 1,000 infants under 3
" months of age naturally fed upon breast milk alone, 20 die
"of autumnal choleraic diseases (i.e., Diarrhoea); but if the
"same number of infants, at the same age, are artificially
"fed then instead of 20 dying as many as 300 die from this
" cause."
7. Violence, Suffocation in bed, etc.
Turning now to the infantile mortality of Clerkenwell we find
that taking all the intra-parochial infant deaths, including those at