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15
The facts brought out by this table are interesting in several ways
and especially because they demonstrate the relation between methods
of feeding and "diarrhœal" disease Thus it will be seen that diarrhoea
is about seven times more prevalent among infants under six months of
age fed on cow's milk than on these fed on the breast alone while the
incidence on infants fed on condensed milk is twice as high as on
those fed on ordinary cow's milk and fourteen times as high as on the
breast fed. It cannot therefore be too strongly urged that breast feeding
is by far the most important means of checking diarrhoea though under
urban conditions it will not entirely prevent the disease unless all the
other requirements of domestic hygiene are scrupulously attended to.
It should also be noted that hand-fed babies succumb more readily to
other than diarrhoeal diseases, though the effect is not so marked as in
the case of diarrhoea.
Attention was directed in my last annual report to the fact that the
infantile mortality rate was on the whole becoming progressively more
satisfactory during recent years. I have therefore thought it desirable to
investigate this point in order that one may see exactly where improvement
is taking place. During the three years 1906-1908, 1,254 deaths
under one year of age were registered, while the number of births
occurring during the same period was 11,870. Fur purposes of comparison,
and in order to construct a short life table, the death rate per
10,000 births has been calculated at each week of the first month of
life and for each succeeding monthly interval. The numbers so
obtained are then comparable with those contained in a similar table
prepared for the annual report of 1902, and based on the mortality of
the three years 1900-2. The 1,254 deaths, under one year, registered
in 1906-1908, were divided into age groups, and reduced in the
proportion of *11,870 to 10,000. These numbers are comparable with
similar figures for Croydon, for years 1900-1902, published in the
Annual Report for 1902, Table G.
*The number of births in 1906-1908 inclusive.