View report page

87
Infantile Mortality.
There were 243 deaths of young children; of these 158
were infants under one year, a number less than the average
for the preceding three years.
The diseases which produced the heaviest fatality
were:—Prematurity, 31; measles, 26; bronchitis, 22; and
diarrhœa, 19.
The number of deaths under one year to 1,000 registered
births was 153, in all London the proportion was 167 per
1,000; and in England and Wales the number was 161,
which was 12 per 1,000 above the mean proportion in the
ten years 1888-97.
This rate is high, but in Ireland it is still higher, for in
a paper on the mortality of children in Ireland (1886-1896)
read before the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland,
Dr. Langford Symes states "that in the city of Dublin out
of 1,000 children born 171.2 die in their first year, and in
Belfast in every 1,000 total deaths no less than 519.8 are
children under five years of age. We are not quite so bad
in Dublin, but it is a reproach even to us that of our total
deaths more than one-third are children under five (306.2
per 1,000)."
Dr. Grimshaw, the Registrar-General of Ireland, in a
paper on "Child Mortality in Dublin," traces it to the
following causes: —
1, Poverty; 2, Inferior house accommodation for the
working classes; 3, Drunkenness; 4, Carelessness.
Senile Mortality.
There were 165 deaths at 65 years of age and upwards,
compared with 138, 152, and 173 in the three preceding
years.