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The following table shows the number of deaths of infants, and their
relation to births in the last five years. It also shows the age periods
at which they died.
The causes of death in each year are given, together with the relative
proportion each group bears to the whole of the infant deaths.
55 percent of the deaths under 1 year of age occurred before the
infants were three months old, 38 percent before the end of the first
month of life, and 22 percent soon after birth. These figures have not
varied much from year to year, but this year they are less than hitherto.
It is extremely difficult, even with careful inquiry, to differentiate
the correct cause of death; thus, in a case where death is certified as
being due to marasmus, or wasting, it may be due to some inherent
defect in the child, preventing the digestion of food, or it may be a
result of unsuitable or improper feeding. This latter may be due to
the poverty, or insufficiency, or other unsuitable quality of the mother's
milk, or to food unsuited for the age of the infant.
A number of children born prematurely succumb later in life when
illness occurs. In 1909, in addition to the deaths directly attributed to
prematurity, congenital debility and injury at birth, which account for
109 deaths, there were 10 deaths from syphilis, and 42 children whose
deaths were ascribed to other causes were found to have been prematurely
born or to have suffered from debility or ill-health from
birth, making 62 percent of the total number who died. Probably
some of the remaining 97 should also have been included, but the information
obtained was not sufficient to make a definite statement thereon.