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44
But the actual number of births is lower than was the case
last year, and returns shew that the rate is falling all over the
country.
The most striking feature of this table is however the fall
shewn in the infantile death rate. Here we are on sure ground.
Again, it is a fall analogous to one occurring in many, though not
all, parts of the country.
But in this district the fall has been very marked indeed, from
134 per thousand births in 1900 to 69 per thousand in 1910. The
Notifications of Births Act is not in force locally, nor have we any
health visitors.
I attribute the improvement, so far as it is attributable to local
effort, to steady, persistent work on the lines of old-fashioned common
sense sanitation ; especially to rigorous supervision of the milk
trade, active attention to the condition of roads and streets,
and insistence on the removal of dust and dirt from houses.
Dirt in the milk shop, dirt in the street and on the footpaths, dirt
in the house, dirt in the kitchens, dirt in the dustbins, and dirt in
in the back yards—these are the causes of death in the
nursery. Flies play an important part, no doubt, but cleanliness
does away with flies. Soil temperature conditions no doubt are
factors too, but these we cannot touch. Dirt we can remove.
The number of deaths registered in the district during 1910
was 215.
In 1901 and 1908 the numbers were 214 and 213 respectively.
In all other years since 1899 the numbers have been higher, It is
quite certain, then, that the death rate has fallen since 1900, when
the number of deaths registered was 220, or five more than in
1910. I estimate the death rate for 1910 as 6.5 per thousand. In
1900 it was 12.7.