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ADDENDUM
TO THE
MEDICAL OFFICER'S REPORT.
.
There is one circumstance bearing upon the statistics of infantmortality
that requires to be adverted to. The births of still-born children
are not registered. The burial charges for still-born children are
considerably lower than those for children which have been born alive.
As might be anticipated, there is therefore an interest, which begets a
disposition, to return children that have manifested only feeble signs of
life and dying within a few minutes of birth, as still-born. To this
tendency on the part of parents and relations to transfer all cases of
feeble or doubtful life to the category of dead-born, may be added the
concurring effect of the practice of medical practitioners to regard as
still-born all children which have not distinctly cried or at least breathed
after birth. The question, however, " hat constitutes live-birth?"
has recently been the subject of legal and medical discussion; and something
of an authoritative definition has been established. A case has
occurred in which, so far from there being any inducement to save a few
shillings by ignoring equivocal evidences of life, the possession of considerable
property depended upon whether a particular child had survived
its birth, or not, if even only for a minute. In this case it was ruled that
breathing was not necessary to prove live-birth; and that the pulsation
of the heart was sufficient. It is probable that a very large proportion
of the medical profession will assent to this doctrine. The consequenc e
will be, that more deaths of new-born infants will be registered;, and
that the importation of this new class of deaths into the tables will
modify the mortality-statistics.