View report page

37
This shows that if the year is divided into three parts consisting of the first
month, the next five months, and the last six months, during the last period
there was a fall in the mortality of 7 per 1000 births, during the middle
period the mortality was stationary, and during the first period there was a
rise of 9'8 per 1000, almost corresponding to the fall of 7 in the last period
added to the total rise for the whole year, namely, 2'3. Again, if the first four
weeks are divided into two parts, one consisting of the last three weeks and the
other of the first week, during the former the mortality was stationary, during
the latter it rose 91 per 1000 births between 1876 and 1901.
These changes indicate an increased immaturity of infants at birth, which
cannot be due to artificial feeding; this diminished viability hi all probability
continues in a considerable proportion of the children that survive during the
early weeks and months of life, so as to render them more liable to succumb to
adverse circumstances. These later adverse circumstances are seen to produce
their greatest effect in the second three months of life when the greatest rise
in mortality is caused by bowel complaints. This is also the period when the
largest proportion of children unready for artificial food appear to have been
weaned and fed upon it, and it is well established that the artificial feeding of
young infants leads to a high mortality during the summer or third quarter of
the year.
Therefore, statistics indicate that in order to diminish infantile mortality it
is necessary to ameliorate, firstly, the pre-natal conditions, and secondly, the
post-natal conditions, and that during both periods efforts should be first
exhausted upon theimother before confining attention to the infant.
The deaths of infants from debility, atrophy, etc., also confirm these
conclusions as shown in the following table, where it is seen that there has
been a total increase of 7.1 per 1000 births, that there has been an increase in
each of the four periods of three months, and that the increase has been
progressively greater towards the youngest periods :—