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26
RESULTS OF TIIE ACTION TAKEN.
During the year 1909 of 5,238 live births registered 3,826, or 73½per cent.
were notified within 36 hours, that is to say, nearly three-fourths of the live
births were promply notified, and in addition 135 still births. The sending
of cautionary letters in cases where there lias been omission to notify is having
the effect of bringing the notifications in earlier.
The effects upon the infantile mortality has been as follows:—
In 1904 = 151.6 deaths of infants per 1000 births.
„ 1905 = 135.7
„ 1906 = 131.1
„ 1907 = 113.8
„ 1908 = 115.0
„ 1909 = 108.8
THE POSITION OF ST. PANCRAS.
The summers of 1907, 1908, and 1909 were cold summers, and the St.
Pancras method of prevention was not put to the test of comparison with other
boroughs and towns in the third quarter of the year. It was in this hot
quarter of the year that St. Pancras did so well by comparison in lowering the
mortality, as shown by the three years 1904, 1905, and 1906, especially in the
last and hottest year of the three. When it is called to mind what a large
proportion of infant mortality is caused by summer diarrhoea and other diseases
due to improper feeding in the hot weather, it is apparent that the principal
test of the value of a system of saving infant life by breast-feeding is the total
mortality in the third or summer quarter of the year. The prevalence of
measles exerts its main effect in the second and fourth quarters, and cold in
the presence of poverty, which connotes insufficient clothing and warming, in
the first or winter quarter of the year, and prematurity more or less all the
3'ear round.