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13
The following chart might well be entitled " the conquest of pestilence " :—
Infant
mortality
The infant mortality rate in 1950, 25.8 per 1,000 live births, constitutes a new
low record, and is an improvement on the rate of 26.8 per 1,000 live births in 1949.
The movements of the death-rates from the principal diseases at ages below one year
since 1911 are shown in Table 7 (page 142). The diagram on the next page illustrates
the decrease in the fatality of infants since the years 1911-14.
The increase in deaths assigned to congenital malformations and birth injury is
partly attributable to changes in classification following the adoption of the 5th
revision of the International List of Causes of Death, which added about 12 per cent,
to the deaths which would formerly have been assigned to this group and partly also
to a tendency for post-mortem examination to be done more frequently resulting in
increased precision in certification. For most diseases there has been a dramatic
reduction in mortality over the last forty years, and, even since 1927, the improvement
is substantial. The pronounced fall in the case-mortality of whooping-cough
and measles has helped to bring down the infant mortality rate. Diarrhoea and
respiratory infections too are now less frequently contracted, and methods of treatment
are more effective. Increasing attention has been paid to the care of the
premature infant and there are signs that these efforts are having a salutary effect on
the mortality risk.