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31
The value of rain as a means of removing filth and microorganisms,
which cause so much of the epidemic summer
diarrhoea, is evident. Scavenging by water carts should take
the place of rain in dry weather, and the dust laid by water
should be swept up and removed before it has time to dry and
disseminate in the atmosphere; and any attempt at scavenging
in dry weather without the aid of water simply results in the
more complete dissemination of dust into the atmosphere.
Added to this, the proper paving of yards, and the regular
swilling of the gutters of the narrow streets of the poor, would
do much to lessen the incidence and death rate of diarrhoea and
other diseases among the inhabitants.
Among the infant population generally "wasting diseases"
and "diarrhœal diseases" account, as a rule, for the greater loss
of life, and one of the principal factors in their causation is
without doubt the deprivation of the natural breast milk and
consequent resort to artificial or hand feeding.
Unsuitable diets are often persisted in, which the infant's
stomach rejects, or its tissues fail to assimilate, and many a
baby's life is sacrificed through the inability of those about the
child to understand that feeding and nourishing are not quite
the same thing. The ill-effects of artificial feeding of infants
become exagerated in hot weather on account of the greater
liability to contamination of food from dust and flies, milk food
often becoming acid, and developing bacteria in the course of a
few hours, although there be outwardly no apparent change.
Since the adoption of the Notification of Births Act, 1907, the
notice of the birth of a child is received within two days of the
event, and enables the Lady Health Visitor to pay an early visit
to the home and give advice to the mother as to the proper
feeding and management of the infant, which I feel certain in
the future will be attended with the most encouraging results.
I submit a list of the principal causes of the 258 infantile
deaths in the Borough during 1912, viz.:—