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22
SPECIAL DISEASE GROUPS CAUSING INFANT
MORTALITY (1906—1913).

In Table A and the chart we are enabled to make a comparison
of the West Ward with the other wards of the Borough with the
Borough as a whole and with England and Wales. In every year the
West Ward has a distinctly higher rate of infant mortality than any
other part of the Borough; it is consistently higher to a pronounced
degree in this respect also than the average for the whole Borough, and
in only two instances is it lower during these years than the average
for England and Wales, viz., in 1909 and 1911. In both of these years
the difference is only very slightly in favour of the West Ward. There
is therefore no doubt but that the West Ward is the part of Croydon
most responsible for the height of the infant mortality rate, and it is
this part of the town which m ost requires special attention for the
mitigation of the diseases which affect infancy.
Tables B and C give us details of the different diseases which have
caused the infantile deaths for the years 1906—1913. In Table B these
are given individually; in Table C the diseases have been arranged in
groups so that we may be able to determine as far as possible the
causes which are at the bottom of this mortality.
Infectious disease has a relatively small fatal incidence; these
conditions affect children much more commonly in the years just preceding
and during school life. It will be observed, moreover, that
forty-seven of the deaths were due to measles and whooping cough.
These diseases should be bracketed for practical purposes in this respect
with respiratory diseases, as the fatal result is almost entirely due to
lung and allied conditions.
Deaths due to diseases of the diarrhœal group, to the atrophy
group, and to convulsions, are usually associated with errors in feeding,
or to conditions associated with the feeding which may in part yield to