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27
(e) Drink.
This is too big a subject for me to more than glance
at here but its evil effects are incalculable. Alcoholic
parents cannot breed healthy children.
The third great cause of infantile mortality is the
class of respiratory diseases, which was last year
responsible for 115 deaths; a rate of 28 per thousand
births as against an average of 23 per thousand for
England and Wales.
Nearly three-fourths of the total mortality from
bronchitis amongst children under the age of five
years occurs within a year of birth. The statistics
prepared by the Registrar General appear to shew
that it is in the second month after birth rather than
the first that Bronchitis levies its heaviest death toll.
Again igorance, bad nursing and overcrowding with
its consequent foul atmosphere, pave the way for the
chill which results in fatal bronchitis or pneumonia.
Dr. George Newman, the recently appointed
medical officer to the Board of Education reported
that in Finsbury in 1905,— "The infant mortality in
one room tenements (532 births in all) was 219 per
thousand, in two roomed tenements (1,216 births) it
it was 157 per thousand; in three roomed 141 per
thousand; in four roomed 99; and in institutions and
houses of more than four rooms only 37 per thousand.
Wasting diseases (Atrophy, Marasmus and want of
breast milk) caused 58 deaths, a rate of fourteen per
thousand as against 18½ per thousand for England
and Wales. Most of the deaths in this group are the
result of improper feeding. The subject of infant