View report page

13
accidents is small, the public should be reminded that each year a heavier toll is
taken by the roads than by any poliomyelitis outbreak so far experienced.
Other
violence
Other violent causes of death accounted for 1,252 deaths. The corresponding
figure for 1950 was 1,253. The peaks in the diagram on page 11 are due to the
heavy toll of air raids.
General

Infant
mortality
*Now includes pneumonia of the newborn.
The infant mortality rate in 1951 was 25.4 per 1,000 live births, which is an
improvement on the rate of 25.8 for 1950. The movements of the death-rates from
the principal diseases at ages below one year since 1911 are shown in Table 7 (page
145). The diagram (page 15) illustrates the decrease in the fatality of infants since
the years 1911-14.
The increase in deaths assigned to congenital malformations and injury at birth
is partly attributable to changes in classification following the adoption of the fifth
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 made more frequently, thus
resulting in increased precision in certification. In most diseases there has been a
dramatic reduction in mortality over the past forty years, and even since 1927 the
improvement is substantial. The pronounced fall in case mortality of whoopingcough
and measles has also 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. Increased attention has been given to the care of the
premature infant, and there are signs that these efforts are having a salutary effect
on the mortality risk.
Neo-natal
mortality

There is some irregularity in the decline in both sets of rates and the margin
between them has varied in extent. In London there was a wartime increase arising
B