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52
Depôts, carried on under proper medical supervision, help to
discourage breast feeding. Certainly this is not so in Battersea.
Fully 80 per cent, of the infants admitted to the Depôt
are recommended by medical practitioners, who cannot be
accused of wishing to encourage artificial methods of feeding
in place of that which nature has provided. There is evidence,
from enquiries, that something like 25 per cent, of the infants
born in Battersea have never been breast fed. It is for this
class, especially in the poorer and more congested districts,
that Milk Depots will be found most useful; and it is to be
hoped, therefore, that the Bill which has been promised for
such a long time, and which was strongly advocated by the
Conference on Infantile Mortality, to legalise this form of
preventive medicine, will soon become law.
Senile Mortality.
During the year 1907, in the Borough of Battersea, 510
deaths of persons aged sixty-five and upwards were registered.
The age distribution of these deaths in the sub-districts is set
out in the following table:—

The 510 deaths over sixty-five were equivalent to 21.1 per
cent, of the deaths at all ages.
The deaths over sixty-five in each year during the five
years 1902-1906 are set out on next page :—