View report page

232
Thus it appears that about one in every two deaths in Finsbury
in 1905, occurred in institutions and not in the homes of the persons
dying ; one in every four deaths occurred in work houses or workhouse
infirmaries ; and one in every six in hospitals.
As in 1903 and 1904 the death rates from all causes and for
certain diseases were highest in one-roomed tenements and lowest
in houses of four rooms or upwards (p. 31). Indeed, death appears
to have been at least four times more frequent in homes of one
room than in homes of four or more rooms. This is significant,
and confirmed each year, but the fact is of relative importance only
and must be accepted with reservation, for the reason stated on p. 30.
Nearly one quarter of the total deaths, or 429, occurred in children
under twelve months of age, which yields an infant mortality rate
of 148.6. Nearly one half of these infant deaths occurred in the
first three months of the twelve months, and one third of the total
occurred in the first month of life. As many as 08 died in the
first week. Further, it must be added that most of these infant
deaths were caused by conditions which are more or less directly
preventable. In the Report will be found a number of particulars
as to these causes and conditions (p. 21.28). Generally, it may be
said that infant mortality in the first weeks of life is due in large
measure to the physical conditions of the mother, leading to
prematurity and debility of the infant; and in the later months of
the first year infant mortality appears to be due largely to unsatisfactory
feeding of the infant. But from either point of view it
becomes clear that the problem of infant mortality is not one of
sanitation alone, or housing, or indeed of poverty as such, but is
mainly a question of motherhood. No doubt external conditions as
those named are influencing maternity, but they are, in the main,
affecting the mother, and not the child. They exert their influence
upon the infant indirectly through the mother. Improved
sanitation, bettor housing, cheap and good food, domestic education, a
healthy life of body and mind—these are the conditions which lead
to efficient motherhood from the point of view of child-bearing.
They exert but an indirect effect on the child itself, who depends
for its life in the first twelve months, not upon the State or the