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128
The death-rate amongst the children fed upon the milk
was therefore 98.7. This rate cannot, however, be compared
with the infantile mortality in the Borough, i.e., the number
of deaths under one year per 1,000 births, as seventy-two of the
Depôt-fed children were above one year old. On deducting
these children there remain 394 infants under one year, of
whom thirty-nine died. This is equivalent to a rate of 98.9
per 1,000, which compares favourably with the infantile
mortality in the Borough, which was in the six months July
to December, 1902, 143 per 1,000 births. This comparison,
however, does scant justice to the Depôt. The Borough
includes the South-Western sub-district, where the infantile
mortality is low, whereas the Depôt children were nearly all
drawn from East and North-West Battersea, where it is high.

But even this comparison is not fair to the Depôt. A
large number of the children attending were already seriously
ill on admission, and some died before the milk had had a
fair trial. Of the thirty-nine infants under one year, fed from
the Depôt who died, no fewer than fourteen had taken the
milk for less than one week. A fairer comparison is to
deduct these deaths, and to deduct also from the deaths in
the Borough and in the sub-districts, the deaths occurring in
the first seven days of life. When this is done, the following
results are obtained:—