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74
APPENDIX H.
4th December, 1917.
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON MATERNITY AND CHILD
WELFARE, BY THE MEDICAL OFFICER.
To the Chairman and Members of the
Health Committee.
Mr. Chairman.—With your permission I would like to
place before the Committee a few observations on Maternity
and Child W'elfare, and at the same time state as briefly as
1 can the present position of Willesden in relation to the
movement.
We all know that there is an enormous wastage of
human life going- on abroad and it behoves us who are at
home to consider how best the wastage may be made good.
This may be effected by one or other or both of two methods,
viz. : by increasing the birth rate or reducing the infant mortality
rate.
Before the war the birth rate in Willesden was falling.
It had fallen from 44'7 per 1,000 of the population in 1875
to 24'7 per 1,000 in 1913. Since war broke out the fall has
been more rapid. Over 4,000 births occurred in Willesden
in each year from 1903 up to and including 1913. In 1914
the number of births was 4,115, but in 1915 the number fell
to 3,775, in 1916 to 3,6(58 while in 1917 at the present rate
the number is not likely to exceed 2,766, or a drop of 32'8
per cent, since 1914. The war and the circumstances attending
upon it account for the recent rapid diminution in the
number of births but not for the falling birth rate in normal
times which requires to be countered if the necessary reconstruction
of human life is to proceed. There is little
doubt that with the spread of knowledge prevention of