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14
Infantile Mortality.
By rate of infantile mortality is understood the ratio of
the annual number of deaths of infants under one year of age
to every thousand births during the same period.
During the year 1906 there were 91 deaths of infants
under one year of age registered in the district, including one
infant not belonging to Finchley (this death has been excluded
in the estimation of the general nett death-rate), as compared
with 773 births. The proportion which the deaths under one
year of age bear to 1,000 registered births is therefore 117.7.
The average for the preceding ten years was 105.9.
The corresponding rate for England and Wales in 1906
was 133, and that for the 76 Great Towns 145.
In Finchley the deaths under one year of age formed 25
per cent. of the total nett deaths at all ages. The percentage
in the preceding year was 22.4.
The rise in the rate of infantile mortality during 1906, as
compared with 1905, was due to the large number of deaths
from diarrhoea in the third quarter of the year. So far as I
have been able to ascertain, the recorded mortality from
diarrhoea was considerably above the average in a large number
of districts, and this increase is only in part accounted for
by the new grouping adopted in the Local Government Board
tables. (The notes accompanying the tables issued for 1906
state that, as regards deaths of children under one year of age,
under the heading "Diarrhoea," are to be included all deaths
from "diarrhœal diseases." Formerly deaths certified as due
to Enteritis were grouped separately, whether occurring above
or under one year of age.)
Deaths from diarrhoea amongst breast-fed infants are of
rare occurrence, but from one cause or another a very large
proportion of infants, even during the first few months of life,