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99
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
"The notifications in Springfield Ward were nearly as numerous
as the births registered, and here the visits have accordingly been
paid the earliest.
"In other parts of the Borough, particularly Streatham and
Balham, this has not been possible as the notifications have been
less, and infants could only be visited after the registration of the
births.
"58 of the infants visited died during the year as against
150 last year, their ages at death in months being shown in Table
L., 22 of these deaths occurred from Diarrhoea and Enteritis,
10 occurring in Tooting W ard. This shows a satisfactory decrease
from the high total of 86 in the previous year, but there is an
increase on that of 1909, which was only 19. The large decrease in
the number of deaths from Diarrhoea was largely due to the humidity
and coolness of the summer.
"The number of deaths from Respiratory Diseases was 21,
the deaths from this cause last year being 22.
"Many infants die from prematurity previous to our visit,
four deaths have occurred amongst those we have visited, and
in one case the child was illegitimate.
"Of the 3,059 infants visited, 73 were premature, 21 were
delicate from birth, 13 were twin children and of these three
died after our first visit.
"There has been much difficulty in tracing the illegitimate
births registered and very seldom are we able to pay a second
visit as the mother has removed from the address shortly after
the confinement. Many of those registered from the Workhouse
have never been visited once as we were informed that the mother
would not return to that address and her future address was
unknown.
"Four wrong addresses were given, three refused to give
any information, 24 removed immediately after confinement (16
oMhese coming here for confinement only), and seven infants we
found had died previous to our first visit, four of these deaths
being due to prematurity.
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