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9
Report of the Medical Office' of Health.
The rate for the whole Borough is much lower than any previously
recorded, being 1.48 per 1,000 under 1910, and 4 26 under
the decennial average.
The birth-rates for the year in all the sub-districts and in the
Borough as a whole show a considerable reduction compared with
the decennial average, while compared with the previous year
there has been a reduction in all the sub-districts, especially in
Tooting and Wandsworth, with the exception of Clapham, where
there is a slight increase in this rate.
The birth-rate for the whole of London was 25.0 per 1,000,
compared with 25.39 in 1910 and 27.55 the decennial average,
while for England and Wales the rate was 24.4 per 1,000, compared
with 25.05 in 1910, and 27.20 the decennial average.
The proportion of births to the number of possible mothers,
or the total number of females living in the Borough at ages 15 to
45 years, was, in 1908, 89.5, in 1909, 82.4, in 1910, 80.1, and in 1911,
73.1. In London it was, in 1910, 86.3, and in 1911, —; and in
England and Wales, in 1909, the last available return, 102.3.
The legitimate birth-rate, calculated on the married female
population, was, in 1901, 215 per 1,000, and, in 1911, 180; while
for London it was 186 in 1910, and in England and Wales 234 in
1901, and 209 in 1909.
These rates will require correction when the detailed Census
returns for 1911 are available.
The Registrar General states that in the main the fall in the
birth-rate is due to diminished fertility of married women, and that
this diminished fertility is due, in some measure, probably to their
greater average age, but largely no doubt to deliberate restriction
of child bearing.
159 births occurred in the Workhouse during the year, and of
these 13 belonged to Clapham, eight to Putney, 67 to Streatham,
14 to Tooting, 35 to Wandsworth, 62 to Battersea, and xo to other
places.