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26
The problem resolves itself therefore into cause and effect.
The primary object of preventive medicine in dealing with
infant mortality, is to seek for the cause, with a view to its
removal. The effect necessarily follows.
Infant Mortality in Battersea.
During the year 1907, 526 deaths of infants were registered
in the Borough of Battersea. The total number of births
recorded during the year was 4,574,* and the infant mortality
rate was 115 per 1,000 births. In 1906 the rate was 126 per
1,000, which had been the lowest death-rate ever previously
recorded in the Borough. Although the rate during 1907 was
11 per 1,000 lower, it was not relatively so good as in 1906,
the meteorological conditions which prevailed in the summer
of that year being as favourable to a high infantile mortality
as those in 1907 were the reverse.
ft

* The Registrar General gives as the total number of "corrected"
births belonging to Battersea, 4,692. If these figures are to be accepted the
infantile mortality rate for 1907 would be 112 per 1,000.
In the above table, while the average rate in Battersea
for the quinquennium 1902-1906 was 134 per 1,000, in 1906-7
it fell to 120 per 1,000.
In the County of London during 1907, there was a total of
14,114 infant deaths, giving an infantile mortality rate of 116
per 1,000.