London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Marylebone 1930
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Marylebone, Metropolitan Borough]
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34
The number of babies under one year who died in St. Marylebone in 1930 was 77,
and the number of births in that year 1,247. The infantile mortality rate is therefore
62. This, which is second to the lowest rate ever recorded (59 in 1927), is
a slight improvement on 1925, when the rate was 63, and a great improvement on
1919, when the figure was 98.5.
The course which the rate has taken is graphically shown in the chart on
page 36, which indicates clearly that the only really serious interruption to the
decline was in 1917.
The means adopted in the Borough with a view to bringing about a reduction
and generally improving the life and health chances of infants and children are
described in a separate section of the report—Maternity and Child Welfare. This
part being merely statistical, it is not proposed at this point to do more than give
some sort of analysis of the figures relating to deaths amongst infants.
Causes.—A Table (Ministry of Health, Table I.) will be found on page 85,
in which, in addition to the causes of death, are 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 1930, as in other years, the greatest number of deaths occurred in the early
weeks of life. Of the babies, 29 were less than one month old when they died and
40 less than three months. The figures for 1929 were 35 and 59, for 1925 31 and
45, respectively.
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 25 in 1929 and 26 in 1930. Diarrhoea and enteritis
(7 and 8) accounted for 16 in 1929 and for 14 in 1930. Respiratory diseases, the
third of the main causes, took 18 in 1929 and in 1930, 14.
Amongst the other causes of death, those which call for mention are the
commoner infectious diseases, which together led to 2 deaths among infants, the
particular disease being diphtheria. Two deaths were stated to be due to overlaying,
1 to meningitis and 6 to measles.
In the following table information supplementary to that in the large table is
given with regard to deaths in various sub-districts.
In 1929 the figure was 43, and in 1925, 56.
| St. Mary | 7 (4) | - (1) | - (1) | i (-) | 4 (2) | 3 (5) | 2 (4) | 3 (2) | 20(19) |
| Christ Church | 4 (13) | - (4) | - (1) | -(-) | 5 (11) | 6 (14) | 9 (8) | 3 (5) | 27(56) |
| St. John | 9 (2) | 1 (1) | -(-) | i (-) | 1 (1) | - (1) | 1 (3) | 1 (1) | 14 (9) |
| Totals | 26(22) | 1 (6) | - (3) | 3 (-) | 11 (14) | 16 (22) | 13(18) | 8 (9) | 77(94) |
The figures in brackets are for the year 1925.