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67
In connection with Diarrhoea, it may be noted that there
are many contributory causes, e.g., maternal neglect, want
of proper feeding, insanitary surroundings, etc., but that
density of population is a most potent excitant, as shewn by
the difference in the rate per 10,000 in the Inner, as compared
with the Outer, Districts. Meteorological conditions
(especially the earth 4' temperature) played, as usual, an
important role in connection with the statistics for Lambeth
during 1898.
On the whole, the Lambeth rate is satisfactory, and
must be considered in connection with the Infantile
Mortality Rate which, for the year 1898, works out for
Lambeth at 1541 per 1000 births—a lower rate than is
shown by any of the Registrar-General's 33 large towns
of England and Wales, with the exception of Croydon and
Huddersfield (see p. 32.) The rate for London, as a whole,
is 167.
As insanitary conditions lessen, the infantile mortality
lessens also, and may be taken as a fair and trustworthy
gauge of sanitary improvement in Lambeth—the inner, more
congested, districts sharing also in the lessened mortality,
but not to the same extent as the outer, less congested,
ones.