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27
Fuller information than is possible in the table is given in the following pages,
in which also the figures relating both to causes of death and the ages at which these
causes were operative are analysed.
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
The infantile mortality rate of any district is the number of deaths of infants
under one year of age per 1,000 of the births which occurred in the same year.
The number of babies under one year who died in St. Marylebone in 1928 was
105, and the number of births in that year 1,317. The infantile mortality rate is
therefore 79, which is higher by 20 points than the rate for 1927 (59), and 2 points
below the figure for 1926 (81). The rate for 1927 (59) was the lowest on record
for the Borough.
The course which the rate has taken is graphically shown in the chart on
page 29.
The means adopted in the Borough with a view to bringing about a reduction
in infantile mortality and generally improving the life and health chances of
infants and children are described in a separate section of this report—Maternity
and Child Welfare. This part being merely statistical, it is not proposed at this
point to no more than give some sort of analysis of the figures relating to deaths
amongst infants.
Causes.—A Table (Ministry of Health Table 1.) will be found on page '28,
in which, in addition to the causes of death, is shown the distribution of the
deaths according to age and locality.
So far as age and causation are concerned, conditions vary little year by
year. In 1928, as in other years, the greatest number of deaths occurred in the
early weeks of life. Of the babies, 35 were less than one month old when they
died, and 53 less than three months. The figures for 1927 were 31 and 37.
The outstanding causes of death and the proportions traceable to them were
those usually noted. Prematurity (numbers 12, 13 and 14 in the table), which as
usual heads the list, caused 33 deaths, three more than in the year 1927. Diarrhoea
and enteritis (7 and 8) accounted for 12 in 1927, and for 17 in 1928. Respiratory
diseases, the third of the main causes, took 14 in 1927, and in 1928, 20.
The commoner infectious diseases together led to 21 deaths amongst infants,
measles being responsible for 14 of these as it was responsible also for the general
increase in the infantile mortality rate. One death was stated to be due to overlaying,
1 to tuberculosis, 2 to meningitis, and 17 to pneumonia.
In the following table information supplementary to that in the large table
is given with regard to deaths in the various sub-districts.
Christ Church, which always contributes most largely to the infantile as to
most of the other mortality rates, being the most thickly populated area and that
in which there is most poverty, most overcrowding and most neglect of ordinary
precautions, is again at the head of the list with 46 deaths amongst infants.