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18
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
The infantile mortality of a district is the annual number of
deaths of children under one year of age to every thousand births
during the same year. Such a return is of considerable value, as it
is one of the most reliable tests of the health of a community and of
the sanitary condition of a district. It has a characteristic value
for two reasons—migration does not greatly affect the distribution
of deaths at this early age, and life is very susceptible to its
surroundings. Hence such a record of deaths affords a delicate
index as to the prevalence of disease and the external circumstances
of life affecting it.
During 1904, as we have seen, there were 3,604 births in
Finsbury. This includes the births in the City Road Lying-in
Hospital. The total deaths of infants under one year was 522, out
of the whole total of deaths of 2,084. The infantile mortality rate
is therefore 168.6. The infant mortality percentage on total deaths
is 25.0. The infant mortality rate is calculated on the total births.
•
excluding the births in the City of London Lying-in Hospital
which do not belong to Finsbury.
In the whole of London during 1904 there were deaths of
infants (18,001) equal to a rate of 140.1 per thousand births. The
mean rate for the last 10 years in London is 153.3.