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figures for infantile mortality : —
Infantile mortality (legitimate) 88.5
do. do. (illegitimate) 166.6
do. do. (all infants) ... 90.2
Of the 269 deaths, 54 were due to prematurity.
This is an increase on the figure 47 for 1921, although
the number of births of live children was slightly
less. The causation of premature birth is a subject
about which a great deal is still unknown, and one
can only surmise that there was an undue amount
of worry amongst expectant mothers during the year
owing to the prevalent distress and unemployment.
The valuable work done in the municipal maternity
clinic should in time make itself felt in a reduction
of the number of deaths of infants from prematurity.
Twenty-five deaths were due to diarrhœal diseases,
the summer having been a healthy one in this
respect. The figure is really a wonderful one, even
as compared with the figure 99 for 1921. One must
look back twenty or thirty years, when 150 or more
deaths per annum from diarrhoeal diseases was not
unusual, to realise how much things have changed
for the better.
Eighty-three deaths from bronchitis and pneumonia
were registered. Such inflammatory affections
of the lungs are, of course, especially prone to affect
infants, and appear to be closely connected with
the existence of overcrowding. The educational work
carried out under the Infant Welfare Scheme has had
and can have only a slight effect in reducing mortality
from chest ailments. No doubt fewer infants are now
allowed to become ricketty and therefore susceptible
to bronchitis and pneumonia. Infants are more suitably
clothed than they were, and greater care is
taken by parents to prevent the onset of chest ailments
after measles or whooping cough. But no
great reduction in the infantile mortality from this
cause can be expected until there is a considerable
improvement in the housing conditions of the inhabitants
of the Borough.