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14
infant mortality, measured by the proportion of deaths
under one year to registered births, was 94 per 1,000,
being 13 per 1,000 below that of 1910, hitherto the
lowest recorded and 33 per 1,000 below the average
rate of the ten years 1902-1911.
The low death-rate was, of course, largely due to the
cold and wet summer with the consequent absence of
epidemic diarrhœa, the mortality being actually lowest
in the third quarter of the year when the rate was 66
per 1,000, compared with 218 per 1000 in the corresponding
quarter of 1911, which was exceptionally hot
and dry. Making, however, every allowance for weather
influences, the marked decline of late years in the
infantile mortality, as shown in the diagram, clearly
points to the removal of conditions prejudicial to infant
life, to which so much attention is now directed, and
since disease, when it does not kill often disables, its
diminution should tend to the improvement of the
physique and efficiency of the surviving children.