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7
Respiratory Death Rate.
The death rate from these diseases, viz.:—Bronchitis, Pneumonia,
Phthisis, &c., is 2.2 per 1,000.
This is the lowest rate recorded during the past 6 years with one
exception.
1892 5.2 per 1,000
1893 1 4 „ „
1894 2.3 „ „
1895 4.6 „ „
1896 2.9 „ „
1897 2.2 „ „
Infant Mortality.
The deaths of children under 1 year of age is equivalent to 110.2
per 1,000 children born and registered, as compared with 1497 for
1896.
1892 139 8 per 1,000
1893 74.0 „ „
1894 146.7 „ „
1895 139.5 „ „
1896 149.7 „ „
1897 110.2 „ „
Table A appended to the Report, illustrates very strikingly the
fact that the greatest number of deaths are those of infants under 1
year of age; and it is a matter of every day experience that the
greatest liability to disease is in the first year of life. In this country
out of every 1,000 children born, 142 die before the end of the first
year of life. Whilst in the more crowded districts of large towns more
than half the deaths are of children under 1 year old. On the other
hand in well-to-do suburban districts, the infantile death rate does not
exceed 100 per 1,000. This is also the average infantile death rate for
Norway, which is the lowest of any European country.
Hence it is that the children of the well-to-do are much less affected
by disease than those of poorer parents, clearly showing that the
mortality is very greatly influenced by the way in which infants are
cared for.
In illustration of this, Dr. Tatham in his Health Reports for the
Borough of Salford, has shown that the mortality amongst illegetimate
children has amounted to 710 per 1,000.
Now it is a very remarkable fact that three.fourths of the deaths
of infants under 1 year of age are of those brought up on artificial
food, and by far the larger number are due to diseases of the digestive
system induced by improper feeding.