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15
MORTALITY AT DIFFERENT AGES.
Infantile Mortality.
Of the 1,908 deaths registered, 462 were of infants
under one year of age, and the rate of infant mortality,
measured by the proportion of deaths under one year
to births registered in Fulham, was 110 per 1,000, and
107 per 1,000 after the inclusion of the births in metropolitan
maternity institutions. This is the lowest infantile deathrate
yet recorded, and is 26 per 1,000 below the average rate
of the preceding ten years. It should, however, be noted
that the fall in the infantile death-rate in Fulham last year
was not so marked as that in the death-rate at all ages, the
deaths of infants under one year of age forming 24.4 per cent,
of the total deaths, as against 22 per cent, in 1909.
The corresponding rate of the County of London was 103
per J,000, and the position of Fulham in relation to other
metropolitan boroughs was worse than last year, only nine
boroughs having a higher infantile mortality, as against
eleven in 1909, the rates ranging from 60 per 1,000 in Hampstead
to 146 per 1,000 in Shoreditch.
In England and Wales the infantile mortality was in the
proportion of 106 deaths to 1,000 births, and the 77 great
towns had a rate of 115 per 1,000. The cold summer of last
year was, of course, very favourable to a low rate of infantile
mortality, but it is improbable that the marked improvement
of late years, as shown by the accompanying chart, has been
entirely due to weather conditions, though we must wait for
some hot and dry summers before we decide as to what extent
the mortality has been influenced by the efforts made to
reduce it.