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15
INFANT MORTALITY.
During the year 1913, the deaths of 472 infants were registered
as belonging to Battersea. The total number of births
registered during the year was 4,240, a decrease of 15 on the
figures for the previous year, giving an infant mortality-rate of
111. This was a marked increase over the infantile mortalityrate
of the previous year, and was due mainly to the increased
prevalence of diarrhœal and respiratory diseases in 1913. It has
to be borne in mind that the infant mortality-rate for 1912 was
by far the lowest ever recorded in Battersea, being only 83 per
1,000 births. The meteorological conditions, which play such an
important part in relation to diarrhœal disease, were, however,
exceptionally favourable to child life during the summer of that
year.
Since the formation of the Borough, and for the previous
decennium, the infant mortality in Battersea and London is set
out in the following table :—

It will be seen from the above table that the decline in infant
mortality in Battersea, which has been such a well-marked feature
of the Council's efforts in that direction, has been well maintained.
In the County of London during 1913 there was a total of
11,869 infant deaths registered, giving an infantile mortality-rate
of 105 per 1,000 births, as compared with 10,056 deaths, giving
an infantile mortality-rate of 91 per 1,000 births in 1912.