View report page

31
The infantile mortality rate for the first six months of 1907
was 117, and for the second six months 108, thus shewing
that a very considerable waste is going on continually, quite
apart from the heavy mortality usually coming on in the third
quarter from diarrhoea.
In 1907 the Diarrhœa rate was almost nil, but in 1906 the
mortality was very heavy from that disease. The infantile mortality
rate for the first six months of 1906 was 110, and for the second
six months 210, but this latter includes 41 deaths from diarrhoea,
which if excluded gives a rate of 120, which is about the average
or a little above it. Therefore, apart from diarrhœl diseases, the
infantile mortality rate in Barking is too high.
Infectious disease is responsible for a variable number
depending to a large extent upon whether there has been or has
not been an epidemic of Measles or Whooping Cough during the
year.
Tuberculous diseases caused 8 deaths in 1907, and 7 in 1906,
or a rate of about .9 per 1,000 births registered.
With regard to Wasting Diseases (Premature Birth,
Atrophy, Debility and Marasmus are the chief names under which
this condition is registered) a rate per 1,000 births registered
of 50.7 is obtained. Out of this number premature birth and
congenital defects account for 29.9, and premature births alone
for 21.8.
How many deaths among these is due to congenital weakness
only I think it very difficult to say, but in my opinion in
Barking very few. Probably if the premature births were properly
looked after and properly fed most would live, and the same