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72 Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
Infant Visiting.
During the year the female Sanitary Inspectors have continued
the work begun in 1905 in visiting the homes where births had
occurred, and they have also had during the year, as is stated in
their report, valuable assistance from several voluntary health
visitors for short periods.
"We herewith submit to you the report on visits among the
newly-born infants in the Borough during the year 1915.
"In consequence of the War we have only been able to obtain
the assistance of two voluntary workers, one for three months during
the summer, and the other for the last month of the year.
"The total number of visits paid, including re-visits and
ineffectual visits was 5,188. The number of first visits totalled
3,096, there were 1,154 second visists and the number of ineffectual
visits was 938. The proportion of first to second visits is about
the same as in 1914.
"166 visits were paid to homes to see to the carrying out of
repairs, etc., for which we had previously served notices.
"On our first visits to the mothers we found 2,554 infants were
breast-fed only. Of the remaining 542, 233 were fed on the breast
supplemented by artificial feeding, 143 were fed on cows' milk
only, 92 on condensed milk only, and 40 on dried milk. 1,154
infants were re-visited and of these 790 were fed on the breast only.
Of the remaining 364, we found in 142 cases artificial feeding was
adopted in addition to the breast, 101 were fed on cows' milk only,
73 on condensed milk, and 22 on dried milk.
"Among the infants we visited, 106 died, the largest number
of deaths occurring during the second to the fourth month of age.