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57
An examination of the causes of death in these 183 infants reveals
the fact that 95 (or 51.9 per cent.) of them were due to the disease
commonly known as epidemic diarrhoea (zymotic enteritis); whereas,
if the year be taken as a whole, instead of the third quarter only, it
will he found that the number of deaths due to this disease is, as
pointed out above, much less. For example, in 1903 only 15.3 per
cent, of the deaths of infants were due to this disease; and even in
1901, when the infant mortality was high in the third quarter, the
percentage of deaths due to epidemic diarrhoea in the whole year
was only 17.5 per cent. The other chief diseases to which deaths
were due were marasmus, bronchitis, measles, convulsions, prematurity,
&c.
It is therefore clear that by far the chief cause of the high infant
death rate in the third quarter of 1904 was this disease of epidemic
diarrhœa.
Our knowledge of the cause, or causes, of this disease is by no
means complete, but something of the favourable conditions is
known, and a brief note may be added concerning these conditions.
The disease is looked upon as a bacterial disease, and its occurrence
depends, wholly or partly, upon a high surrounding temperature
and deficiency of rainfall, the dust pollution of food—chiefly milk—
and all the conditions of unwholesome life in cities. The exact
relationship which these conditions bear to each other is not yet
known.
(a) The Relation of Season.
The main effect of season depends upon dryness and heat. A hot
dry Summer favours the disease; a cool, wet Summer, or a Summer
that is either cool or wet, exerts an unfavourable effect on the
disease.
In 1901 there were in Finsbury in the Summer quarter 93 deaths
from Epidemic Diarrhoea. The Summer was a hot one, the
maximum temperature of the air rising as high as 68.4° F., and
having a mean throughout the quarter of 61.7° F. The rainfall
was very small (4.63 inches).