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The deaths under 1 year of age form 20.4 per cent. of the total
deaths of all ages, whereas those for the preceding year formed 19.0
per cent.
The rate of infantile mortality is higher than that of the two preceding
years, despite the fact that, owing to the favourable climatic
conditions of the past year, the corresponding rate for most of the
Metropolitan Boroughs shows a marked reduction. The circumstance
is due to the greater number of deaths registered from gastric catarrh,
and enteritis, and measles. I propose to make a special enquiry into
the deaths from gastric catarrh and enteritis during the present year.
England exceeds all other countries in Europe in the proportion of
deaths of infants under one year of age which result from suffocation
while in bed with their parents. During the recent 10 years the number
of such deaths has exceeded 15,000. It is impossible to believe that
many of these deaths are not due to criminal neglect on the
part of parents. Although most cases of overlying are of an accidental
nature, yet there are many cases in which the death occurred under
such conditions of carelessness or reckless indifference to the infants'
welfare, or of culpable neglect of precautions during intoxication, that,
in the opinion of a high authority, the parents should be committed for
trial for manslaughter. This is done in a few cases in England, but it is
difficult to prove gross and culpable neglect, and convictions have
seldom followed.
The Clergy and Ministers of all denominations might do much in
the way of warning poor and ignorant parents against the risk of taking
their infants into bed with them, and the question arises as to whether
it should not be declared to be an obligation on every parent to provide
a cradle or cot for the infant's use.
Senile Mortality.—Of the 647 deaths 188 were of persons over 65
years of age. The proportion of deaths occurring among those of
over 65 years of ago to the total deaths is, therefore, about 29 per cent.
There were 150 deaths of persons over 70 years of age, and 54 of