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9
Mortality at Different Ages.
Infantile Mortality.—The number of infants under one year
of age who died in 1896 was 105, as compared with 87 in 1895.
The infantile death-rate, which is stated as the proportion of
deaths of infants under one year to registered births, was 137 in
a thousand, which compares with 113 in 1895, and an average of
109 during the ten preceding years.
The infantile death-rate for England and Wales in 1896
was 148 per 1,000 births, as compared with an average of the
the same number during the ten preceding years.
In the individual parishes the infantile death-rate varied
from nil in Addington, 45 in Morden, and 71 in Wallington, to
150 in Woodmansterne, 176 in Mitcham, and 187 in Sanderstead.
The comparatively higher mortality among infants in 1896,
as compared with that of 1895, was due to an increase in the
number of deaths from whooping cough, and dietic and respiratory
diseases. The latter increase was probably one of the effects
of the measles epidemic, and it was confined to Mitcham, where
that disease was the most virulent.
Children under 5 years.—The deaths of children under 5
years numbered 160, or 41 per cent, of the deaths at all ages.
In proportion to the estimated population under this age in the
District in 1896, this number represents a death-rate of 49.1 per
1,000.
The corresponding rate in 1895 was 37.0 per 1,000, and the
average for the five years 1891 to 1895 was 40.2 per 1,000.
The higher mortality of 1896 at these ages was due to an
increase in the number of deaths from measles, whooping cough,
and respiratory diseases.
The deaths of persons between 5 and 15 years numbered 18,
or 4.6 per cent. of the total deaths, and represented a death-rate
of 2.2 per 1,000 of the population living at those ages, as com"