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15
number of deaths. It is well known to specialists in children's diseases
that " wasting " constitutes one of the commonest causes of death among
infants. Thousands of children die every year in London simply because
they are fed on indigestible food which acts as an irritant to the stomach
and intestines.
The many causes leading to the loss of infant life in St. George's may
be thus summarised :—
(1) Bad environment, such as insanitary conditions, overcrowding,
and absence of parks and open spaces. (2) Improper and insufficient
food. (3) Mismanagement through maternal ignorance. (4) Early
marriages. (5) Debility, disease, and dissipation of parents. (6) Maternal
neglect, due to mothers being more or less employed away from home
in factories and workshops. (7) Use of opiates, usually in the form of
patent medicines.
Diarrhoea causes the greatest loss of life amongst children, and I have
already pointed out how, in my opinion, the use of sterilised milk would
vastly lessen the incidence of that disease. The lamentable number of
deaths from measles could be to a great extent avoided by a proper
isolation and nursing of those attacked. Indeed, the more one looks into
the matter the more one is convinced that the excessive death-rate amongst
children is in the main avoidable and unnecessary.