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27
It will be noted in the above table that the mortality is
heaviest in the first three months of life, more than half the deaths
occurring during that age period. It will further be noted that
three groups of diseases between them account for 366 (or 74 per
cent.) of the total deaths of infants during 1908, viz., prematurity,
respiratory diseases and diarrhoea.
Looking more in detail into these figures, it will be seen that,
of the 494 deaths of infants, 149 (or 30 per cent.) were due to
congenital or developmental diseases (which include prematurity,
marasmus, atrophy, debility, etc.), such infants not having had
the necessary vitality to survive.
The number of deaths in this group, it is satisfactory to be
able to report, show a marked decrease as compared with 1907,
so far as East and North-West Battersea are concerned. These
two districts are in the main inhabited by the industrial class,
and, in 1907, the highest infant mortality rates were shown to
exist in certain wards in these districts. The birth rates in these
two districts during 1908 are about the same as in the previous
year. The decrease in the death rate from this group of diseases
(i.e., 22.4 per cent.) is interesting. In South-West Battersea, on
the other hand, a district inhabited by a more prosperous class,
and in which the birth rate is practically the same as in 1907,
there was an increase (10 per cent.) in the number of deaths from
this group of diseases. .
The diarrhoeal group of diseases were responsible during 1908
for an increased number of deaths amongst infants as compared
with 1907. The meteorological conditions prevailing during the
summer of 1908 were to some extent, doubtless, responsible for
these deaths, amounting to 23.6 of the total infant mortality.
The third group of diseases, giving rise to a large number of
infant deaths in Battersea during 1908, was the respiratory group,
98, or nearly 20 per cent., of the total infant deaths being due to
bronchitis and pneumonia. As compared with 1907, there was a
slight improvement so far as these diseases are concerned, there
being a decrease of 2 per cent.