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7
Infant Mortality.
A record of the number of deaths of children under one year
of age per 1,000 births is generally considered a fair indication
of the healthiness of a district. The chief diseases proving fatal
to children under one year of age are as follows :—
More than four-fifths of the deaths in the first month are due
to premature birth, congenital malformation, and feeble vitality.
Diarrhceal complaints reach their maximum destructiveness
from about the third to sixth month. Inherited syphilis covers
mainly the first four months. Deaths from irritation of teething
are most numerous in the last three months of the year.
The earliest of the zymotic diseases to declare itself is whooping
cough ; next comes measles, most fatal after the eighth or
ninth month; whilst scarlet fever scarcely carries off any infants
at all in the first year.
It will readily be seen, on reference to Table III., that nearly
one seventh of the deaths of infants under one year of age occur
at one institution alone, and this, of course, raises the infant
mortality of St. Margaret's parish very much indeed, for it must
be remembered that most of the children at this institution are
not born in the parish, but are imported chiefly from outside
districts.