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12
Infantile Mortality.
The infantile mortality rate for any year is calculated from the number of deaths
of infants under one year of age, and the number of births occurring in that year.
In 1911, the deaths numbering 261 and the births (corrected) 2,375, the rate was
equal to 109'8 per 1,000.
The average rate for the 10 preceding years was 124'4 ; in 1910 it was 98'9, the
lowest ever recorded, the next lowest, 102'2, was the rate for 1907. The conditions in
both these years were extremely favourable.
The reasons for the excess of the rate of 1911 over that of 1910, are, though the
heat of the summer of 1911 was particularly trying to infants, partly only climatic.
To a considerable extent they are also statistical.
Corrections of figures have been all round more carefully carried out, and as a
result the number of births, as compared with former years, has been greatly cut down
by rigorous exclusion of all occurring in institutions and elsewhere to mothers not
actually members of the population of St. Marylebone. At the same time, the number
of deaths of infants has been increased by the addition of all, no matter where they
occurred in England and Wales, amongst the children of Marylebone people.
Taking these facts into consideration, the rate, though apparently high, is not
discouraging. It is high only when compared with those of years in which
corrections were less thoroughly made, and in which climatic and other accidental
circumstances aided the efforts which the Council are and have been making to reduce
the death rate amongst young children.
Compared with the average rate for the past 10 years (124'4), or better still, with
that of 1901, the year of the last census, when it was 147'6, the population being
133,301, the births 3,042, and the infant deaths 449, it is small, and shows how
marked an improvement has taken place.
Causes of Infantile Mortality—Ages at Death.
The three following tables show for each registration sub-district, the ages at
which death occurred amongst the infants who died, and the causes to which death
was attributable.