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27
THE POSITION OF ST. PANCRAS.
The summers of 1907 and 1908 were cold summers, and the St. Pancras
method of prevention was not put to the test as compared with other boroughs
and towns in the third quarter of the year. It was in this hot quarter of the
year that St. Pancras did so well by comparison in lowering the mortality, as
shown by the three years 1904, 1905, and 1906, especially in the last and
hottest year of the three. When it is called to mind what a large proportion
of infant mortality is caused by summer diarrhoea and other diseases due to
improper feeding in the hot weather, if is apparent that the principal test of
the value of a system of saving infant life bv breast-feeding is the total
mortality in the third or summer quarter of the year. The prevalence of
measles exerts its main effect in the second and fourth quarters, and cold in
the presence of poverty, which connotes insufficient clothing and warming, in
the first or winter quarter of the year, and prematurity more or less all the
year round.