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7
Infantile Mortality—There were 200 deaths registered of Infants
under 1 year of age, as against 1,068 births; the proportion which the
deaths under 1 year of age bear to 1,000 births is, therefore, 187.2 as
against 181.9 in the preceding year.
Prior to the commencement of the fourth quarter of 1899, the
deaths of children under one year were below the average for the
preceding year, but the mortality from diarrhœa caused an unexpected
rise.
Summer diarrhoea must be thought of as something quite apart
from the diarrhoea which figures as a cause of death all the year round.
There are sufficient reasons for believing that the essential cause of
the complaint resides in the soil, from which it issues under favourable
meteorological conditions (more especially of temperature) to gain
access to air, water, and food.
It is especially important, therefore, in the summer months to take
every possible means of ensuring the freedom of these necessities of
life from contamination. Infants fed artificially for the first nine
months of life, suffer much more from the complaint than those fed
naturally from the mother's breast, and where such artificial feeding is
necessary, very much mortality would be prevented if parents would give
nothing but well boiled diluted cows' milk for the first nine months of life,
and by keeping all milk vessels and feeding bottles scrupulously clean.
For the neglect of these simple precautions, the infants of these islands
alone are paying a yearly toll of many thousands of deaths.
An increasing and distinctly preventable cause of Infantile Mortality
is from overlaying or from suffocation in bed. I am pleased to state that
no inquests were held during the year on "overlaid "children, which is
a record for this parish as far as I can ascertain. The Coroner writes
to me "They used to be of frequent occurrence, and never a year has
passed without 3 or 4 such cases."
In England the number of deaths from overlaying steadily increases,
the highest on record being (or 1896, when they reached 1,941; of these
1,740 were under one year of age.