London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Deptford 1913

Annual report on the health of the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford

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The following table shows the infantile mortality in the various wards:— DEPTFORD.

Ward.Births Registered.Deaths under 1 year of age.Infantile Mortality per 1000 Births.
East Ward711123173
North Ward76881105
North-West Ward73882111
South Ward1941262
South-East Ward3072478
South-West Ward3882872

TABLE SHEWING THE NUMBER OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS IN THE BOROUGH DURING THE YEAR 1913.

BIRTHS3106
DEATHS—including 625 in Outlying Public Institutions1727
Excess of Births over Deaths1379

The value of rain as a means of removing filth and micro-organisms,
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, 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 illeffects
of artificial feeding of infants become exagerated in hot weather
on account of the greater liability to contamination of food from dust