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calls, explains the instructions, learns the reason why the child is
not fed at the breast, and gives suitable advice. Every effort is
made to encourage breast-feeding, and mothers are advised to
seek medical assistance before they decide to discontinue this.
Where poverty is found to be a cause of improper feeding,
mothers are referred to the Charity Organization Society or other
suitable agency.
The Woolwich Board of Guardians were asked to allow sufficient
out-door relief to mothers with young infants for whom
the Guardians were responsible, so that the mothers would not
be obliged to go out to work and leave the baby to be fed with a
bottle by some other person.
It was found that births were usually not registered for more
than four weeks, so that the advice often came too late. To meet
this difficulty your Medical Officer of Health suggested, at a
Public Conference, that returns should be obtained from midwives
of all births attended by them. The London County CounciL
which supervises midwives, took up the idea, and now obtain
weekly lists of births from midwives and send to each Metropolitan
Medical Officer of Health a list of those occurring in his
Borough. In this way information of about half the births is
obtained within two weeks.
23. Deaths under 5 years and over 85.—The total deaths
under 5 years were 505, or 36'5 per thousand population under
5 at the Census. The rates in the two preceding years were 40'8
and 47'2. Thirty-six deaths occurred over 85 compared with 35
and 26 in the two preceding years.
24. Zymotic Death Rate.—The number of deaths from the
seven principal Zymotic diseases was 129, giving a death rate of
1.0compared with 0.96 and 2.2 in the two preceding years.
The
following table gives the Zymotic death rate in each parish
during the past six years :—