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18
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
The Infantile Mortality, recorded by the deaths of children
under one year of age to the number of births registered, was 119
per 1,000 births, there having been a total of 318 such deaths
during the year, as compared with 373, the figure for the previous
year, showing a decrease of 55 actual deaths. The number for
the County of London was 129 per 1,000 births.
The lowest rates of Infantile Mortality amongst the Metropolitan
Boroughs were 88 per 1,000 births in S. Marylebone, 92
in Holborn and in Lewisham, 94 in Hampstead, and 102 in
Woolwich, whilst the highest were 148 in Southwark and in
Bermondsey, 149 in the City of London, 151 in Bethnal Green,
153 in Poplar, and 167 in Shoreditch.
Locally the variations were from 102 per 1,000 births in
Charlton, 111 in East Greenwich, 114 in West Greenwich, up to
162 in St. Nicholas.
An important Conference respecting Infantile Mortality was
convened by the St. Pancras Borough Council, which your
Medical Officer of Health had the pleasure of attending, when
the following Resolutions were agreed to:—
(a) That it is desirable that every encouragement should be
given to prospective mothers to seek advice as to the management
of their health, so that they may endow their offspring with good
constitutions, and prepare themselves to suckle their infants when
born.
(b) That it is desirable that all efforts should be exhausted
upon improving the health of suckling mothers before devoting
attention solely to their infants.