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1910] 36
The gradual decrease in the local infantile mortality during the
last few years has been due to the very favourable meteorological
conditions, cool air and occasional rains, and in a lesser degree
to the decrease in overcrowding, to the educational influences of
the Press, and to the general awakening of the popular conscience
to the fact that innumerable and unnecessary deaths were daily occurring.
The consequence of this awakening has been felt in most of the large towns,
which have nearly, if not all, shown a lessened mortality, while the country
as a whole has not lagged behind, for there the rate has been 106, as compared
with 121 in the preceding five years. In the Great Towns the fall has
been from 132 to 115. A few figures arranged in tabular form will better
show what has been happening in England and Wales.
Infant deaths per
Period. Birth-rate. Death-rate. 1,000 births.
1851-60 34.1 22.2 154
1861-70 35.2 22.5 154
1871-80 34.4 21.4 149
1881-90 32.5 19.1 142
1891-00 29.9 18.2 154
1901-05 28.4 16.0 138
1906-10 26.0 14.6 117
Here it is very apparent that from 1851 to 1900 there had been no decrease
in the proportion of deaths among infants to the number of births, although
in the same period the death-rate from all causes steadily decreased, notwithstanding
the great growths of the towns and the greater density of their populations,
from 22.2 per 1,000 of the population to 18.2, or nearly 20 per cent.
It is, therefore, exceedingly gratifying to find that coincidentally with the movement,
instituted by thoughtful men and women during the last ten years, to
prevent the great waste of human life that was occurring, there has been so
great a decrease; indeed, so great has it been that whereas formerly 154
infants died during their first year of life, out of every 1,000 that were born in the
last quinquennium only 117 died, or a saving of 37 lives in every 1,000 births. But
great though the improvement has been, the mortality is still far and away too
high ; nor will those who take an interest in the protection of infantile health
be satisfied until it has been reduced to the narrowest limits. What that
limit is it is impossible to gauge accurately, but it must certainly be thirty to
forty per cent, lower than the latest returns for the country show. That the
Insurance Bill introduced into Parliament by the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
if it should become law, will reduce the mortality among infants is a certainty,