DEATHS THROUGH IGNORANCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1058, 18 June 1912, Page 4

DEATHS THROUGH IGNORANCE.

AN APPALLING LIST,

Uncleanliness, first and last, lies at the root of nearly all preventable disease and moitalily. Neariy a million children were born in England and Wales iu 1909. Of these, 106 out of every 1,000 died during 19x0. But in Reigate only 60, and in Hertfordshire only 63 per' 1,000 died iu their first year. If the infant mortality throughout the country had been as low as that in Reigate or Herts, 40,000 of those who died would have survived. Every twelfth minute on every night and day throughout Che year a baby died who would not have died if the health conditions in its home had been as good as those in Reigale or Herts. During 1910, over 35,000 men, women and children in England and Wales died of the seven principal zymotic or infectious diseases. These diseases are preventable. The zymotic death rate in Beckenham, for instance, in 19x0, was less than one-eighth of that for the whole country. One death every 20 minutes would have been prevented if the mortality throughout England and Wales had been reduced to the Beckenham rate.

Consumption is possibly the most important of all preventable diseases. There were over 50,000 deaths in 1909 from tuberculosis. There are 200,000 children in the schools of Toudou alone suffering Irom detects which are largely preventable. One, at least, out of every three blind children would have had his sight it a little care had been taken at his birth.