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made within three days. The Corporation of Huddersfield has succeeded
in obtaining power to compel the registration of a birth within
48 hours.
Section 73 of the Huddersfield Corporation Act, 1906, provides
"that it will be the duty on and after November 1st, 1906, of the
father of every child born within the borough, if he is actually residing
in the house where the birth takes place at the time of its occurrence,
or in his absence of any person in attendance on the mother at the
time of birth or within six hours thereafter, to send or give Notice of
the birth to the Medical Officer of Health of the borough within
forty-eight hours after such birth. Every person required to give or
send such notice who fails to give or send the same shall, unless he
satisfies the court that he had reasonable grounds to believe that
notice had been duly given, be liable, on summary conviction, to a
fine of not exceeding twenty shillings, including costs, for each
offence."
It may be stated that a period of two months now elapses before
the premises can be visited by the sanitary authority. Seventy-one
deaths occurred before the children reached the age of two months.
In other words, the circumstances connected with 71 of the infantile
deaths were for all practical purposes beyond the control of sanitary)
authorities. But this does not exhaust the inadequacy of the present
registration machinery. It has been reported to the Health Committee
that the number of wrong addresses given by parents is on the
increase. In some districts as high a proportion as five or ten per
cent, of the births are not recorded at all. There is no necessity to
enumerate the causes which lead to this deception, probably the
desire to escape vaccination is one of the most potent. It is sufficient
that the practices exist, and with the present registration system they
will continue and prosper. The registrar has no means of detecting
these abuses. The infantile mortality had decreased between the
ages of 3 and 12 months, but under the age of 3 months the rate
had been stationary.
But to obtain the best results in the prevention of infantile
mortality, the work of preventive medicine should commence before
even the birth of the child. Last year, there were 25 deaths from
Prematurity, 5 from Congenital Defects, 4 from Injury at Birth, 16