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20
In the course of the forty years ended in 1900, the corrected
death rate at all ages had fallen by about fifteen per
cent., but no such corresponding reduction could be recorded
in the proportion of deaths of children under one year of age;
since the close of the century, however, the subject of the
waste of infant life, formerly treated with apathy, has received
close and increasing attention from all classes of the community,
and to this awakening may fairly be ascribed some portion of
the decline in the rate of infantile mortality that has taken
place during the past few years.
In Sir Shirley Murphy's last published report for the
same year (1906), issued in February last, a table is
given which shews the average infantile mortality in
each of the Metropolitan Boroughs calculated upon
the births for the five years 1901-1905; this table
states the infantile death rate in Bethnal Green to be
an average of 150 deaths in proportion to each
thousand children born alive. This mortality is
exceeded in five of the other Metropolitan Boroughs
Shoreditch 173, Finsbury 160, Bermondsey 159, Southwark
158, and Poplar 154. In the other Metropolitan
Boroughs the deaths were fewer in proportion to the
births than in Bethnal Green, the lowest being in
Hampstead with 95. The proportion for the whole
of London is 139.
The average birth rate in Bethnal Green during
the five years was 35.2; the highest in London with
the exception of Stepney which was 36.7; the London
birth rate for the same period was 28.0.
Usually a high birth rate entails a high infantile
death rate but exceptionally (as in the case with
France) a comparatively high infantile mortality is
coincident with a low birth rate.