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40
BOROUGH OF SOUTHWABK.
Infantile Mortality.
Summer Diarrhæa is one of the most fatal of diseases for infants.
It chiefly occurs in hand-fed babies, and is mainly due to improper
feeding, and the dirty condition of the home.
With proper care the baby ought not to die from the complaint.
In London alone nearly 5,000 deaths, and in Southwark 282 deaths,
were due last year to Diarrhœa.
To prevent much of this excessive mortality mothers should be
strongly urged to breast-feed the baby until it is seven months old. A
baby so fed does not need and should not be given other food during that
period.
It is found that breast-fed babies almost entirely escape this Summer
Diarrhæa.
When the baby must be hand-fed the best cow's milk should be
procured, as that is the only reliable substitute for breast milk. The
milk when brought into the house should be at once boiled, and either
kept in a glass stoppered bottle, or in a vessel well covered so as to
protect it from dust contamination.
Diarrhæa being a dirt disease, it is absolutely necessary that the
home should be kept free from dust and dirt, and the rooms properly
lighted and ventilated.
All refuse should, as far as possible, be burned, or if that cannot be
done it should be kept in a well covered bin in the yard, and the bin
emptied regularly.
All articles of food, especially in hot weather, should be sound when
purchased, and anything the least offensive should not be eaten.
All water if not taken from the main supply pipe should be boiled
before it is drunk, and the cistern in which it is stored kept cleansed and
well covered.
G. B. MILLSON,
Medical Officer of Health.
TYPHUS FEVER.
No death has occurred from this disease during the year, and no
case was notified.
MEASLES.
The deaths from Measles during the year numbered 191, as against
83, 164, and 161 for the three preceding years.
The two wards most affected were those of St. Michael and
St. George.