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(1) a lower death-rate.
(2) a lower zymotic death-rate.
(3) a lower infantile mortality rate.
(4) a lower occurrence rate of infectious disease.
At the same time there has been a fairly steady birth-rate, the
lowest being 21.0 in 1898 and the highest 26.6 in 1904.
The average birth-rate for the decennium 1898-1907 has been
24.5, and the actual rate for 1908, 23.7.
Such fluctuations as have occurred in the birth-rate probably
depend very greatly on the coming to the district in certain years
of greater or lesser numbers of newly married couples.
In Mortlake, where the population increases more rapidly by
immigration than in Barnes, the birth-rate is at present much
higher than in the fellow parish.
The general death-rate is higher in Barnes, where the average
age of the inhabitants is greater, and the infantile mortality is
greater in Mortlake, where there are more families of young children.
The Notification of Births Act of 1907 has not been
adopted in this district. The administrative machinery necessary
to make it a success does not as yet exist, and the present Sanitary
staff is indeed hardly numerically equal to its present duties.
I consider, however, that the circumstances of this district are
such that more can be done in the way of redeeming infantile
mortality by the continued efforts of the Sanitary Department on
general lines than by directly attacking the question by way of
health visitors, etc.
The figures for this, and last year are, I think, some justification
for this view, as the very noteworthy reduction in infantile mortality
during the last five years has been coincident with laborious work