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110
the great influence which the conditions of childhood exercise upon
the subsequent life of the individual.
Certainly Public Health Authorities may take credit for having
reduced the Rate of Infantile Mortality in London during recent years.
Even in poor districts, such as Shoreditch and Southwark. there has
been a redtiction of some 20 per cent, in .this rate, if the mean rate for
the past six years, 1905-1910. are compared with those of the previous
five years ending 1904, and a very similar reduction is to be noted in
Boroughs such as Hampstead and Kensington, which are, generally
speaking, occupied bv a more well-to-do community. The reduction
in the rate of infantile mortality cannot be wholly attributed to the
colder and wetter summers of recent years; nor can it be explained as
the consequence of the reduction in the birth-rate, although both circumstances
together would probably account for a considerable proportion
of the reduction mentioned. It is possible that the actual
reduction in the rate of infantile mortality is masked by the circumstances
that the birth-rate is becoming increasingly a class rate, and
has become more and more disproportionately a rate affecting the
poor people, among whom infantile mortality has always been high.
This view is borne out by comparing the relative decreases in the
number of children dying under one year of age in the Northern and
Southern Divisions of the Borough respectively. The actual number of
births registered during the past five years are fewer than those registered
during the previous five years, despite the increased population,
and this should favour a lower infant mortality. The circumstance
that the rate of infantile mortality for rural Wiltshire is only a little
more than half of that for the Urban County of Durham, suggests
that much remains to be done throughout the country to reduce a
mortality rate which is in no small measure preventable.
The summer of 1911 w:as one of the most disastrous to child-life
of any for several years. The steady decline in infantile mortality,
which had been noteworthy for some years, was not only checked, but,
owing to the phenomenal weather, it reached1 a figure which was considerably
above the mean figure for the past five years. The extent of