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14
INFANTILE MORTALITY.
Per 1000 births the deaths of infants under 1 year of age in
London was 129, in 76 great towns 149, and in 142 smaller
towns 154.
I am glad to he able to report an improvement on last year's
figures, and should have been able to present better figures still but
for the occurrence of infantile diarrhœa, brought about by avoidable
causes. It has frequently been found during our inspections that
condensed milk is the food of infants, and in some cases we
have found that cheap tinned milk of a very inferior quality is in
use. This is sold as machine-skimmed milk, and I have had
samples submitted to the Public Analyst with the result that
whereas unskimmed or whole milk contains about 10 per cent. of
fat or more, the samples I sent for analysis contained only 1.3 per
cent. of fat. The parents use this tinned milk obviously because it
is cheap and also in ignorance, but the effect of its use must be to
lower the child's vitality to an extent bordering on starvation, which
renders the little sufferers quite unable to resist an attack of illness
such as diarrhoea when that supervenes.
In my monthly Report for June I advised, as a precautionary
measure, that the roads in the poorer parts of the District be well
watered in order to allay the dust in which are to be found many of
the germs provocative of infantile diarrhcea. This was done and I
am sure the District benefited thereby.