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86
Enquiry into the Rate of Growth (weight) in the Second
Year of Life of Woolwich Infants born in 1921. In the Annual
Report for 1923, tables and diagrams were published shewing
the results of an enquiry into the rate of growth during the
first year of life of Woolwich infants who were born in 1921.
It was considered desirable to continue the investigation so
as to shew the rate of growth, in the second year of life, of the
same infants, and during 1924 summaries were made of the
weights recorded in the previous two years. Although many
observations of the rate of growth of children under one year
have been made in infant clinics, and although many of these
results have been published and tables constructed for different
areas of this country and for other countries, we find that
there is a marked paucity in the number of tables published
of the rate of growth in the second year. I have been able
to find only one, which was published in 1899 in the "New
York Medical Journal" by Dr. Griffith who also discussed
some figures obtained from another observer (Lorey).
Method of Enquiry. The enquiry was limited to children
born in the year 1921 who had attended the infant welfare
centres in the years 1922 and 1923. The total number of
male infants whose weight was tabulated was 447 and the
number of female infants was 450; the total weighings for
males being 2,141 and for females, 1,971. In the construction
of tables, however, only one weighing of each infant in each
month was used; if more than one was recorded in the same
month the average figure for that infant was taken. Thus the
total weighings used in the tables were reduced to 1,664 for
males and 1,547 for females. The weight was recorded at the
centres to the nearest ounce, the age was taken in half-monthly
periods, and the result is shewn as the weight at the end of
each completed calendar month. In the second year of life
children do not attend the centres so frequently as in the first.