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40 MORTALITY OF CHILDHOOD.
remainder numbering 76, including 49 fed entirely by hand (bottle), 19 fed by the breast
supplemented by various food, and 8 whose method of feeding was not stated. Of the
infants of all ages, 78.6 were fed entirely on the breast. (See belcnv).

A very considerable proportion of the children whose mothers were visited were firstborns,
a fact of some importance, as any advice successfully inculcated on this occasion may
be expected to bear fruit in the future. Notes as to the number of elder children were made
with respect to 1,116 families, such children numbering 3,800—not including the infants whose
births led to the calls—giving an average of 3.4 children per family. Losses of children by
death were reported in 376 families (33.6 per cent.), the children dead numbering 665, equal
to an average of 1.7 per family. The mortality was equivalent to 175 per 1,000 children—
a high figure, but less than the rate (196.8) recorded among families visited in 1907.
The visits are made the occasion for distributing the Department's booklet on Infant
Rearing, or leaflets on the subject, as well as giving verbal advice. So far as the Staff of the
Department is concerned, every endeavour is made to avoid any tendency to officialism, and
to seek to cultivate the goodwill of the mothers. Most of the Society's workers are District
Visitors well known to the mothers, and it is such workers who visit nearly all the infants
before the third week.
In addition to calls at the homes two "Consultation Centres" are maintained by the Societv,
where infants can be weighed and medical advice obtained as to the methods best suited to
each individual child. The Northern Centre was opened in April, 1908, and the Southern in
November, 1907. The infants brought for advice during the past year numbered 209, and the
attendances totalled 705. It is possible, from personal observation, to say that many of
the children who were not progressing satisfactorily before being brought to the Centres,
made steady improvement almost from the date of their first attendance. To encourage
the continuance of suckling, grants of milk are made to mothers, 42 such grants being
given during the year. Hand-fed children are also given milk, when the circumstances of the
parents render such allowances necessarv. Twenty-three such grants were given.
During 1907, 1,255 infants were visited, 57 of whom were known to fail to survive the
first year of life, equal to a mortality of 42 per 1,000. Among the infants visited during 1906
the mortality was at the rate of 47 per 1,000.