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* See Table IV.
† 38 infants—20 still-born, 18 dying within 1 week, excluded.
‡ 25 unstated—9 home work, 2 out work, 14 no occupation.
The superior health and low mortality of breast-fed infants is very
striking in Table II/, and it is satisfactory to find that this mode of
feeding is the universal practice among the poor where circumstances
permit (nearly 75 per cent, of the babies were breast-fed). The high
death-rate of infants weaned under six weeks has already been referred
to, but it should perhaps be noted that many infants fall into this
class who are already in a dying state at the time of weaning
(Table IV). The death rate of infants bottle-fed from birth is again a
high one, but in this case also, a certain number of mothers unable to
nurse from constitutional weakness (phthisis, heart, &c.), and whose
health presumes a high rate of delicacy among their infant?, must be
borne in mind (Table IV). Yet after making the fullest allowance for
these facts, the death-rate of hand-fed infants remain an unduly high
one and is undoubtedly to a large extent directly traceable to the
mode of feeding.