INFANT MORTALITY IN AUSTRALASIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5360, 1 June 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

INFANT MORTALITY IN AUSTRALASIA.

There is seen (says the Australasian) to be good reason for; the inquiry which Dr. Gosso has lately discussed in a lecture in Adelaide, “Why. do babies die in South; Australia?” when we find that during a period of ten years the death-rate among the infant population before completing their first year was 157 in every 1000 births, as compared with 126 :iu Victoria, 125 in Queensland, 104 in New South Wales, 102 iu New Zealand, and 101 iu Tasmania. This statement makes, as Dr. Gosse showed, the infantile mortality in South. Australia to be 25 j.er cent, above that of Victoria, 26 per cent, above that of Queensland, 51 per cent, above New South Wales, and Super cent, above Tasmania. In England and Wales the proportion during ten years was 154 per 1000 births, and the mean death-rate in London 161 per 1000 births, although influenced by all the disadvantages of city life, is still only a little higher than that of South Australia, where the population grows up in what we should consider the healthy influences of life in the country, or ini very small towns. . Dr. Gosse in his lecture paid a high tribute to the climate of the colony, and acquitted that of any share iu producing the exceptionally high rate of infant mortality. It may be said, as respects this point, that: the intense heats of summer possibly influence this, mortality more than the . lecturer suspected; But as the question is not how is it that the mortality is so high, but ho.w.is it that it is so high as compared with the ; other colonies, the summer heat, being a factor common to all, may safely be omitted from the comparison. But when we come to the causes that he assigns for the high-death-rate, it seems to. us that these also are common to all of the colonies iu an equal degree. At least, Dr.. Gosse made no attempt to show that they existed in higher force in South Australia than elsewhere. The use of patent medicines and soothing syrups, and other quack- remedies,', neglected drainage, parental : drunkenness, early marriages, improper feeding, and so on, are causes of infantile, deaths by no means limited to South Australia, and. the lecturer j did not endeavor to prove that they existed inc a higher measure there than elsewhere.: ■ Grant that they are all potent causes'of mortality among young children every where, the; lecture, to be of any scientific value as an answer to the question with which it set out, the relatively high rates of - deaths in i that colony; should have shown that the local causes existed in a degree of potency adequate to the production of the effect. And this, so far as we can see, was not shown, or attempted to be shown, and the question of the very high, death-rate of infanta in South Australia, as compared with other colonies, remains absolutely unanswered-: