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10
Infantile Mortality.
The achievements of preventive medicine in the reduction of
infant mortality rank among the greatest accomplishments of
recent years. The infantile death rate in Camberwell last year
was the lowest ever recorded in the history of the Borough, viz.,
52 per thousand births. The number of deaths of infants under
one year was 223, a decrease of 71 on the 1926 figure. On examining
the deaths of children under one in recent years, we find
that while early post-natal deaths, within a month after birth,
remain fairly constant, the reduction has been most marked in
those diseases where the education of the mother in child rearing
bears fruit, namely, diarrhoea and respiratory diseases.
The success thus achieved must not cause us to diminish our
efforts, as there are still a number of mothers who do not exercise
intelligent care of their offspring, and to whose bad mothering
deaths from diseases occurring in the early weeks of life can be
attributed.