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Report of the Medical Officer of Health. 73
On the other hand statistics have been prepared to show that the
death-rate among infants fed with milk from these depots is much
lower than that among infants not so fed.
Dr. Hope, of Liverpool, kept close observation on 4,453 children
fed at the Liverpool depots and showed that among these the infantile
mortality was 78 per 1,000, compared with an average of 167.3 for the
whole city for the three years 1901-1903.
This method is, however, most fallacious, as to properly compare
these rates they should be calculated for each month of the first year
of life and not for the whole year. The mortality is much higher in
the first week of life, and in the second month the mortality is much
less than in the first month, falling gradually to the seventh or eighth
month of life.
On a very small scale the results in the creches in this Borough
show that children of the poorest class, if well cared for and carefully
fed, do escape Diarrhœa, as not one death occurred among the children
attending these.
The means which should be adopted to prevent this disease other
than establishing a milk depot are as follows:—
(1). The education of mothers with infants as to the proper methods
of feeding such infants, especially in the hot season.
(2). The education of girls in the 6th standard in domestic hygiene
and the provision of continuation classes in domestic hygiene
at the public day schools.
(3). Frequent house-to-house inspection and the insisting on a higher
standard of domestic and personal cleanliness.
(4). Backyard sanitation to be more strictly attended to, and with
this must be included the daily removal of house refuse.
(5). The compulsory provision in all houses of proper storing places
for food. In the great majority of houses provided for the
working classes no provision is ever made for this.
(6). All premises where milk is sold should be licensed annually by
the Sanitary Authority.