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94
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
10 out of a total of 18 deaths from Diarrhoea, and 15 out of a
total of 42 from Enteritis occurred in the third quarter of the year.
The proportion of deaths in this quarter to total deaths from
Diarrhoea is less than in any of the five previous years.
The number of deaths from Diarrhoea, Zymotic Enteritis, and
Enteritis under one year represents 11.6 per cent, of the total
mortality at that age, compared with 33 per cent, in 1911, 12 per
cent, in 1910, 15 per cent, in 1909, 19 per cent, in 1908, 13.8 per
cent, in 1907, 33 per cent, in 1906, 211 per cent, in 1905, and 28'8
per cent, in 1904, so that the decrease of the mortality under one
year was largely due to the decrease in the number of deaths of
infants from the above causes.
This ratio is the lowest yet recorded.
The low rate from Diarrhoea and Enteritis was to be expected
as the climatic conditions were during the third quarter of the year
most unfavourable to the propagation of house flies, their comparative
absence being noted in the district generally.
There are other factors now in operation which tend to
lessen the incidence of this disease, and chief among these may
be noted the work of the Inspectors in visiting homes where births
have occurred, and the instructions given to mothers, the more
frequent inspections of yards, and the better paving of the same,
the more rigid supervision of the removal of manure from stables,
the increase of motor vehicles, the lessening of horse traffic with
consequent diminution of horse manure in the streets, and the
new system which has been largely adopted in this Borough in
dealing with road surfaces by tar spraying. The influence of
these last three factors is not sufficiently appreciated by the public
generally.
In s11 the deaths under one year from Diarrhcea and Enteritis,
special inquires were mada, and the following Tables show the
nature of the food given.