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18
Infant Mortality. —The deaths under 1 year of age amongst
Hackney residents during the year 1912 numbered 426. This is
a decrease of 207 upon the number of infant deaths during the
previous year. The infant mortality rate for the year is
therefore 79 per 1,000 births. This rate is the lowest on record
for the Borough. The decline is mostly due to the very mild summer
of last year, and the comparatively remarkable freedon from infectious
disease. Whereas during 1911 there were 172 infant deaths
due to diarrhoea and enteritis, during last year there were only
52. The deaths also from measles for the same years were respectively
30 and 4.
Other causes of infant deaths during the year which must be
mentioned are 80 premature births, 56 attributed to atrophy,
debility, and marasmus, and 78 to bronchitis and pneumonia.
During the first eight months of 1912, Mrs. C. Brown, Health
Visitor, who had continued her work amongst nursing mothers and
their infants, made 657 primary visits and 900 secondary visits,
and in addition 244 fruitless visits, the mothers being out at the
time or having changed their address. Unfortunately Mrs. Brown
left the service of the Borough Council on the 31st August, and
her office was not filled up until the beginning of this year. The
weekly meetings at the Town Hall, for advising nursing mothers
generally in the care and nurture of their infants, were continued
during the year while we had the services of a Health Visitor,
but after the resignation of Mrs. Brown they were discontinued.
In losing the Services of Mrs. Brown, the Borough Council lost
a most capable, conscientious, and energetic Health Visitor, who
was deservedly most popular with the mothers whom she visited.
I append a table giving information as to the feeding,
of infants, and the home conditions found by the Health Visitor
amongst the 657 infants visited.