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40
Among the features in our National Mortality Statistics which
continue to indicate a preventable waste of life, the mortality from
Measles is a striking one. The exceptional prevalence of this disease
during the first half of last year was promoted very considerably by
unfavourable meteorological conditions, and those conditions are
beyond our control; but this is not true of much of the mortality
among cases of this disease; this is due to insufficient nursing and
care during convalescence and one finds it almost confined to the
poorer people. It is seldom that the disease itself kills a child; it is
the subsequent bronchitis and pneumonia which do so, and these
complaints are so largely the result of a failure to adequately clothe
and protect the child from undue exposure during convalescence.
PUERPERAL FEVER.
Under Puerperal Fever are included the deaths from Pyremia
and Septicaemia occuring in the lying.in women. The origin of
each of the 4 cases was very obscure, and it was quite impossible to
suggest the source of infection when I personally investigated them.
It is satisfactory to note that the mortality among puerperal women,
both from puerperal sepsis and from accidents of childbirth, is still
/continuing to decrease. In the year 1908 the mortality from all
causes whatever connected with the puerperal state was equal to a
rate of 4.81 per 1,000 births.