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PART II.—SPECIAL SUBJECTS.
PREVENTION OF INFANT MORTALITY.
In his Annual Report for 191] (p. xliv), the Registrar-General gives a table
showing the mortality of infants arranged according to the fathers' occupation.
He finds that the infant mortality of a group (the best) made up of the children
of artists, merchants, medical practitioners, solicitors, naval and army officers,
woodmen, C.E. clergymen, and persons connected with education, was 42 per
1,000 births; whereas in a group (the worst) made up of general, foundry,
dock and factory labourers, workers in iron, earthenware, brass, flax and hemp,
etc., makers of tubes, lamps, salt and patent fuel, navvies, tin runners, scavengers,
curers, costers and hawkers, the rate was 171 per 1,000 births, or four
times as great.
There could be no more eloquent testimony to the vast wastage in infant
life which is occurring in the lower grades of society ; unless, indeed, it is to
be assumed that the "stock" in these lower grades is itself so inferior as to
account for the mortality independently of environmental conditions. The
balance of evidence is against any such assumption.
It is a fact to be faced that in St. Pancras (as in other Boroughs) there is a
great amount of sickness and death amongst infants due solely to the conditions
under which they live. The statistical report on this subject will be found on
pages 19 to 23.