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39
(b) For Ringworm.
Total Examinations—19
Positive.
15
Negative.
4
(c) For Tubercle.
Total Examinations—142
Positive. Negative.
29 113
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
Infantile Mortality.
41 deaths occurred in infants under 1 year, corresponding
to an infantile mortality of 46 per 1,000 births. This is the lowest
infantile mortality recorded in the district; the next lowest was
that of 1930 when it was 50 per 1,000 births. One of the most
striking features of the past year has been the comparative absence
of diarrhoea in a particularly hot and dry summer. A few years
ago such a phenomenon would have been unexpected, and, in the
beginning of the century it would have been astounding. In the
early years of my tenure of office in Acton, there were certain
events which were particularly dreaded, among these were a major
epidemic of measles during the winter and a very hot dry summer.
Although the mortality from Measles has been considerably
reduced, it still occupies a fairly prominent place in our death
returns; but diarrhoeal diseases among infants have almost disappeared
as a cause of death. It has been hinted that the causes
of immunity from Diarrhoea mortality were associated with climatic
conditions, and that it was unfair to compare an infantile mortality
with that of former years as we have experienced a series of cold
wet summers. But it is perfectly fair to compare the summer of
1933 with those of 1921, 1911 and 1906. As far as climatic conditions
are concerned the summer of 1933 was a particularly favourable
one for the development of summer Diarrhoea and yet
in the third quarter of this year only two deaths of children under
two years of age occurred in Acton from Diarrhoea. Altogether
7 deaths occurred from Diarrhoea.
This improvement is not exceptional and limited to a few
places, but it has been observed almost throughout the whole country.
Some towns have no recorded deaths from the disease, and in only
one Metropolitan Borough and in Sunderland, was there a