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The crude or recorded death-rate was therefore 7.5 per
1,000 of the population. In order to obtain the corrected
death-rate for the purposes of accurately comparing the
death-rate with that of other Districts, it is necessary, in
addition to the above corrections, to take into consideration
the age and sex distribution of the population.
The " factor for correction" for this District is 1.045.
The corrected rate is obtained by multiplying the crude or
recorded death-rate by this factor.
The corrected death-rate was 7.8, a decrease of 1 per
1,000 on the rate of the preceding year, and 2'3 below the
average corrected rate for the previous 10 years. This is the
lowest death-rate on record for this District.
As compared with the preceding year, there was a considerable
increase in the rate of deaths from Phthisis, Cancer,
Heart Diseases, and Scarlet Fever, and a slightly increased
rate of deaths from Diphtheria, Infantile Diarrhoea, and
Influenza ; but otherwise there was a general slight decrease.
In the case of Scarlet Fever, besides the fact that the disease
was very prevalent throughout the district all through the
year, the type of the disease was decidedly more severe than
has been the case of late years, many of the cases admitted
into the Isolation Hospital being of a virulent nature; this
accounts for the increased rate of mortality from this disease.
As to the cause of the increased mortality from the other
diseases enumerated above I am unable to give any reason.
The death-rate in England and Wales was 14.7, which
was 0'3 below the rate in 1907, and the lowest rate on record ;
compared with the average rate of the previous 10 years the
death-rate in 1908 showed a decrease of 1.7.
Infantile Mortality. —There were 37 deaths of infants
under 1 year of age, which gives an infantile death-rate of 56'1
per 1,000 births registered, as against 72'7 in the preceding
year, 104.9 in 1906, and 77.7 in 1905. The average rate for
the 10 years 1898-1907 was 97.4.
This is by far the lowest infantile death-rate on record in
this District, and is 16'6 below that of the previous year,
which was the previous lowest rate on record for the District,
and 41.3 below the average rate of the previous 10 years.
This continually falling infantile death-rate is in itself very
satisfactory, and although it is in part no doubt due to the
constantly improving sanitation of the district, and to the fact